Recently, Reddit user u/PossibilitySea7292 posed the question , "What famous people have a side skill so large that they could be famous for that, too?"
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And who knew people could have so many talents?! Here are some of the top-voted responses:
We also included responses from this Reddit thread.
1. Lucy Liu
"She is a compelling, awesome, and accomplished sapphic painter under the name Yu Ling!"
—u/darangatang
Gilbert Flores / Variety via Getty Images 2. Vanilla Ice
Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images 3. Gerard Way
David Wolff - Patrick / Redferns via Getty Images 4. Hugh Laurie
"He is an accomplished jazz pianist."
—u/chickenkev
"And a pretty damn good singer. Did a couple of records in the 2010s of blues standards that were pretty good."
—u/AH2112
Jeff Kravitz / Getty Images for WarnerMedia 5. Terry Crews
"He is actually a really talented artist. He used to do courtroom sketches. They sort of show it in some Brooklyn Nine-Nine episodes."
—u/carolstilts
"He first went to Western Michigan on an art scholarship, but then he tried out for the football team and earned a football scholarship."
—u/Squirrel_Q_Esquire
Rich Fury / Getty Images 6. Natalie Portman
"She was working her way toward a research career in neuroscience when the acting career took off. She got into Harvard on academics (earned high As on an academic course load all through high school), and she's co-authored scientific research papers ."
—u/doublestitch
Roy Rochlin / Getty Images 7. James Cameron
"Fairly well known, but James Cameron seems to only direct movies to pay for his deep sea exploration."
—u/MalcolmLinair
"Imagine becoming one of the best to ever do something, just as a hobby to fund the actual hobby you're interested in. Most of us can't even get the main quest right, where as people like Cameron are doing main quests as a hobby. Some people are just built different."
—u/Silverwidows
Kevin Winter / Getty Images 8. Jack Johnson
"He was a competitive surfer, then got injured and instead became a chart-topping musician."
—u/RelativelyOldSoul
Jana Legler / Redferns 9. Jamie Foxx
"This man should be studied. He is a top-tier actor, he sings like an absolute angel, he is an amazing stand-up comedian, and his impressions are spot on!"
—u/lellaa
"He's also a classically trained pianist, for which he went to college on a scholarship. And the director and producers of Ray did NOT know that before casting him as Ray Charles."
—u/dimsum4you
Axelle / FilmMagic 10. Steve Martin
"Actor/comedian but also a well-known, serious banjo player."
—u/Bally_3
"He has won three Grammys for it, so yeah, he's a bit serious."
—u/straighttoplaid
"He also won two Grammys for comedy albums. And he's an Emmy winner and Oscar winner for writing."
—u/EdBear69
Jon Kopaloff / FilmMagic 11. Geena Davis
David Livingston / Getty Images 12. Idris Elba
"Idris Elba has a career as a DJ if he ever wanted to give up acting. I think he's been doing both for nearly the same amount of time, maybe DJing even longer than acting."
—u/hamsolo19
"I got into his music after hearing some of his tracks in Phantom Liberty . Dude is really good."
—u/parasseux
Stuart C. Wilson / Getty Images 13. Viggo Mortensen
"He is fluent in English, Spanish, Danish, and French and can function in a lot of others. He paints, released many albums, is an incredibly accomplished horseman, and has written a book of poetry. He still writes poetry. He's had his photography in an exhibition, surfs, often did all his own stunts, and picked up sword fighting really easily in LOTR . Love this guy."
—u/LividAd5306
Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images 14. Brian May
"He is the world-level guitarist for the band Queen as well as many solo projects. He also has a PhD in astrophysics and is taken seriously as a researcher in interplanetary dust. The PhD is not honorary; his dissertation is titled 'A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud.' He is a visiting researcher at Imperial College."
—u/javanator999
"All of Queen were extremely talented outside of music. John Deacon studied electronic engineering and created the Deacy Amp. Roger Taylor studied dentistry, then got a Bachelor of Science in Biology after finding dentistry boring. Freddie Mercury was an accomplished artist and even designed the famous Queen logo."
—u/Lucius_Funk
Jordi Vidal / Redferns 15. Hedy Lamarr
"Laid the groundwork for Bluetooth."
—u/cutratestuntman
"For a lot of radio transmission actually. She did it during WW2 to have jam-free radios."
—u/biffbobfred
"The frequency-hopping technology is used today by cell phones, WiFi, etc."
—u/Anileh
Silver Screen Collection / Getty Images 16. Will Ferrell
"If you watch the end credits for The Producers , all the German songs are actually being sung by him."
—u/ohsupgurl
"One of my favorite moments in film is when he sings Por Ti Volare at the Catalina Wine mixer at the end of Step Brothers . I love it."
—u/t_portch
Dominik Bindl / WireImage 17. Shaquille O'Neal
"He is pretty well known amongst EDM fans for being a dubstep DJ."
—u/ThePhoenixus
Rich Fury / Getty Images 18. Aldis Hodge
Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images 19. Nick Offerman
"He is an accomplished woodworker."
—u/fotodevil
"He also plays the saxophone, is good at stage combat, and studied and performed Kabuki, which is why Ron Swanson did those things in Parks and Rec ."
—u/lorgskyegon
Axelle / FilmMagic 20. Jennifer Tilly
John Sciulli / Getty Images for The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) 21. Donald Glover
"Known for his talents in acting, writing, and producing, Glover is also a successful musician and rapper under the stage name Childish Gambino."
—u/Wooden-Ambassador347
"He also did stand-up for a while and was part of a YouTube comedy group that was decently successful."
—u/TheReflexTester
Karwai Tang / WireImage / Getty Images 22. Nicole Richie
"She was a competitive figure skater and almost went pro! She chose college over professional ice skating, but it's sort of wild to imagine we may have not gotten The Simple Life or years of her tabloid antics with Paris and all their socialite friends if she had an Olympian image to keep up with."
—u/youarelosingme
Lionel Hahn / Getty Images 23. Rod Stewart
Jeremychanphotography / Getty Images 24. And finally, Matthew Perry
"Matthew Perry was a nationally ranked tennis player in Canada (top 20 in singles, top 10 in doubles)."
—u/saucytopcheddar
"This makes the episode where he let his boss and boss's wife win at tennis funnier in retrospect. RIP, sweet prince."
—u/mr_popcorn
Axelle / FilmMagic Any other celebs with cool or surprising skills? LMK in the comments below!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
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