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Photo Credit: Apple TV<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
A Stranger Things <\/strong>star has discussed how Natalie Portman<\/strong> is a strong influence on her academic background. Some careers are linear, while others take shape through subtle influences like a standout performance, a perspective-shifting interview, or watching someone navigate two worlds. The actress in question recently opened up about how Portland\u2019s educational background inspired her.<\/p>\n Gabriella Pizzolo has opened up about the way Natalie Portman\u2019s example redefined her relationship with academia.<\/p>\n Pizzolo, best known for playing Suzie Bingham on Stranger Things, spoke exclusively with PEOPLE<\/a> on April 22, 2026, at the Broadway premiere of Beaches in New York City. During the interview, the actress revealed she has earned two college degrees. \u201cI have a degree in psychology and music,\u201d the 23-year-old said, and pointed to Portman as her inspiration for studying psychology.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember I was looking for what to study, and I saw Natalie Portman studied psychology, and not necessarily anything in the world of drama,\u201d she added. \u201cAnd I was like, \u2018That\u2019s actually really smart.\u2019 It\u2019s an alternative to drama and theater, but you still learn a lot about people and how they interact through that,\u201d Pizzolo further shared.<\/p>\n Natalie Portman studied at Harvard University from 1999 to 2003, filming several Star Wars projects during her breaks from classes. The Stranger Things star also explained that she kept acting while she was in school. She described filming throughout the night and attending classes during the day, adding that the best part was being physically on campus rather than studying remotely.<\/p>\n The Beaches actress explained that campus life gave her access to people and experiences she wouldn\u2019t have found if she had stayed exclusively in the acting world. \u201cI kind of got to get to know new people that I would\u2019ve never known, and they kind of got to share all of that stuff with me while I was going out and doing those things,\u201d she revealed.<\/p>\n She noted that going to school while everyone else was out saving the world and dealing with demogorgons felt like a very Suzie path, referencing her smart Stranger Things role.<\/p>\n Originally reported by Sibanee Gogoi on\u00a0ComingSoon<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n The post Stranger Things Star Reveals How Natalie Portman Inspired Her Psychology Degree<\/a> appeared first on Mandatory<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.aol.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Photo Credit: Apple TV A Stranger Things star has discussed how Natalie Portman is a strong influence on her academic background. Some careers are linear, while others take shape through subtle influences like a standout performance, a perspective-shifting interview, or watching someone navigate two worlds. The actress in question recently opened up about how Portland\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2401097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[468832,468835,468833,468831,386216,347097,305890,468834],"class_list":["post-2401096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-academic-background","tag-degree-in-psychology","tag-educational-background","tag-gabriella-pizzolo","tag-harvard-university","tag-natalie-portman","tag-stranger-things","tag-suzie-bingham"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Stranger-Things-Star-Reveals-How-Natalie-Portman-Inspired-Her-Psychology.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2401096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2401096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2401096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2401098,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2401096\/revisions\/2401098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2401097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2401096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2401096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2401096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Gabriella Pizzolo explains how Natalie Portman inspired her academic pursuits<\/h2>\n