Every actor faces the question: What’s the best way to develop my craft? Jessica Chastain studied at the hallowed Juilliard School. Joaquin Phoenix learned on the set of the ’80s TV show “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.” As the best actor and best actress Oscar winners since 2020 show, there’s no one answer; the paths to success vary considerably. Here’s how they did it.
Formal education and training
Adrien Brody
Best actor: “The Pianist” (in 2003); “The Brutalist” (in 2025)
Training: The American Academy of Dramatic Arts (specialized)
Brody’s formal acting education began early with childhood classes at AADA, and he returned in 1993 for additional conservatory study. He also briefly attended Stony Brook University and Queens College. Though he never pursued a degree, his training gave him a deep appreciation for the craft. “I liked [acting classes] instantly.… I felt I was good at it; it was creative,” he told the British newspaper the Times in 2005. “It was a good outlet for me.”
AADA provides immersive, intensive conservatory-style education for actors who are serious about their craft. The first acting school in the English-speaking world, AADA is called the “Cradle to the Stars,” and for good reason. Its alumni—an impressive roster that includes Paul Rudd, Danny DeVito, Anne Hathaway, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Jennifer Coolidge, and Mamoudou Athie—have received hundreds of Oscar, Emmy, and Tony nods.
Jessica Chastain
Best actress: “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” (in 2022)
Training: AADA; Juilliard (BFA)
After studying at AADA, Chastain earned her BFA at Juilliard, where she was awarded a scholarship funded by none other than Robin Williams (who briefly attended the school years prior). Before her time at the performing arts school, Chastain “didn’t do well in school,” she told NPR in 2015. “It wasn’t until, actually, I got into school at Juilliard—it was the first time in my life that I thought, Oh, maybe I’m not stupid. Because I was so inspired and passionate about what I was learning.”
The crown jewel of American acting education, Juilliard’s drama division is known for its rigorous conservatory-style training program. Its student roster reads like a who’s who of entertainment royalty: Anthony Mackie, Laura Linney, Christopher Reeve, Viola Davis, and Adam Driver are just a few of its A-list alumni.
Brendan Fraser
Best actor: “The Whale” (in 2023)
Training: Cornish College of the Arts (B.A.)
“I have Seattle to thank for birthing my acting career,” Fraser told local Seattle channel KING 5 in 2022. “I was a student at Cornish College in the late ’80s and ’90s, earned my degree there, and intimately and closely linked to the artistic community that is Seattle.” Although he initially planned to pursue an MFA at Southern Methodist University, he told us in 2023 that he decided instead to move to Hollywood and “get good and scared and lost” in pilot season.
Cornish College of the Arts was a private arts college until 2025, when it was absorbed by Seattle University; the school has retained its focus on providing individualized, innovative arts education since its inception, in 1914.
Anthony Hopkins
Best actor: “The Silence of the Lambs” (in 1992); “The Father” (in 2021)
Training: Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama; Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Hopkins graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama before training at RADA in London and understudying Laurence Olivier. While he told GQ in 2021, “Don’t waste your money” on acting classes, Hopkins has also acknowledged that his own studies allowed him to refine his craft.
“I went to RADA for some training, and I began to gather together a sort of technique for myself,” he said in a 1989 interview with the Guardian. “I understood that there was something required of an actor, that you couldn’t just walk onstage and speak, that you had to do a lot of training, or had to have a lot of experience.”
The national conservatory of Wales, RWCMD has one of the smallest intakes (under 1,000 students) of any U.K. drama school. It boasts intimate classes, multiple performance and production spaces, and historic buildings, such as the aptly named Anthony Hopkins Centre.
Actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree founded RADA in 1904, making it one of the oldest schools of drama in England. Known for its world-leading vocational training, RADA has trained many notable actors, including Sir John Gielgud, John Hurt, Glenda Jackson, Vivien Leigh, and Ben Whishaw.
Frances McDormand
Best actress: “Nomadland” (in 2021)
Training: Bethany College (B.A.); Yale University (MFA)
“I went to four years of college,” McDormand said in a talk with the League of Professional Theatre Women in 2012. “I went to drama school for three years at Yale, and I was trained as a classical theater actress. The only choice was to come to New York and start working in the theater.… When I came to New York, I was fortunate, coming out of a major drama school.”
McDormand’s journey began at West Virginia’s private liberal arts school Bethany College, known for providing personalized attention and frequent performance opportunities for its students. Its theater program puts on innovative, culturally significant plays produced both departmentally and by students.
From there, she went to Yale’s prestigious drama program, which has produced an extraordinary talent list that includes Meryl Streep, Paul Newman, Sigourney Weaver, Angela Bassett, and Lupita Nyong’o. The program attracts students who often come with strong academic backgrounds; many hold undergraduate degrees from other prestigious institutions before arriving in New Haven.
Michelle Yeoh
Best actress: “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (in 2023)
Training: Royal Academy of Dance; Manchester Metropolitan University (B.A.)
Yeoh studied at RAD as a teenager before a spinal injury changed her career path. She went on to earn a B.A. in creative arts with a minor in drama from MMU and worked with acting coach Mel Churcher—but it was her dance training that prepared her mind and body to take on the action roles that made her a star. “In my studies, I found freedom in discipline and focus,” Yeoh explained in a speech to Harvard Law’s graduating class of 2023. “I trained tirelessly day and night, drilling my body in every aspect of the craft.”
RAD is a U.K.-based examination board specializing in dance education and training, with an emphasis on classical ballet. Since opening its doors in 1920, it has grown to become one of the largest dance organizations in the world. The RAD method merges several European and Eastern European dance traditions to create a signature style recognized internationally as the English style of ballet.
MMU promotes creative excellence, as evidenced in its partnerships with powerhouse institutions like the BBC and the Royal Exchange Theatre, to produce a thriving entertainment ecosystem. This approach has spawned talent including Dame Julie Walters, Steve Coogan, John Bradley, and Bernard Hill.
Renée Zellweger
Best actress: “Judy” (in 2020)
Training: University of Texas at Austin (B.A.)
Although her degree was in English literature, Zellweger enrolled in an elective drama class during her time at UT Austin, setting her on a path that would ultimately lead to Hollywood stardom. “I wanted to learn,” Zellweger said of her college years to the Telegraph in 2004.
“I wanted to be consistently challenged, and I knew I needed to be creative in some way. When I got my job in a bar and I could pay for my tuition and go on auditions and sometimes get jobs that I loved and pay my rent, I knew that I would be all right.”
UT Austin has established itself as a significant force in the entertainment industry, with notable attendees including Farrah Fawcett, Marcia Gay Harden, Matthew McConaughey, and Owen Wilson. The university’s robust liberal arts approach guides students to be imaginative, think critically, and express themselves freely, creating a well-rounded foundation for success.
Learning on the job
Mikey Madison
Best actress: “Anora” (in 2025)
Training: On set, classes
Madison was homeschooled after seventh grade and didn’t attend college; but she started taking acting workshops at 14. She told us that she considers her first major role, on the FX comedy “Better Things,” to be her immersive acting training experience: “I learned the beginning of everything on that show,” said Madison, who was 17 when she got the part. “It was my first big role, my film school.” That on-the-job training set Madison up for her breakthrough role, in Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film “Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.”
Cillian Murphy
Best actor: “Oppenheimer” (in 2024)
Training: Theater company
Murphy studied law at Ireland’s University College Cork but dropped out after about a year to join the Corcadorca Theater Company, where he was cast in Enda Walsh’s 1996 play “Disco Pigs.” “That time, making ‘Disco Pigs,’ was kind of the most important period of my life,” he explained to the Guardian in 2016. “The people I met there remain my closest friends.… They shaped me in terms of my tastes, in terms of what I wanted to do with my life.”
Murphy reprised his role in 2001 when “Disco Pigs” was adapted into a film, and he later found mainstream success with roles in Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later,” Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins,” and Wes Craven’s “Red Eye.”
Joaquin Phoenix
Best actor: “Joker” (in 2020)
Training: On set
Phoenix’s first acting gigs were a guest appearance on “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” (1982) and an afterschool special about dyslexia (1984), both alongside his brother River. He never attended college and has no formal acting training, preferring a naturalistic approach over hitting the books. “I feel like everything you learn as an actor growing up is wrong,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2012. “You’re supposed to hit your mark, find your light, and know your lines. Those are all things that just make things wooden, dull, and boring.”
Will Smith
Best actor: “King Richard” (in 2022)
Training: On set, coaching
In 2008, Smith told Reader’s Digest that he “had no intention of going to college” and never even applied; instead, he pursued a rap career, and later, his years on the ’90s sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” served as his informal acting school, allowing him to make his film debut in “Where the Day Takes You” (1992). Smith has since trained for decades with acting coach Aaron Speiser, and he emphasized that “the things that have been most valuable to me I did not learn in school.”
Emma Stone
Best actress: “La La Land” (in 2017); “Poor Things” (in 2024)
Training: On set, coaching● Stone attended Xavier College Preparatory as a high school freshman but dropped out to pursue acting, taking lessons with acting coach Bobb Cooper. “I think my parents saw that acting was the thing that made me fulfilled and happy,” Stone told the Hollywood Reporter in 2017, discussing her parents’ support of her alternative path. And it paid off: After brief appearances on TV series like “Medium” and “Malcolm in the Middle,” her breakthrough performance came in 2007’s “Superbad.”
This story originally appeared in the October 20 issue of Backstage Magazine.
