5 of Our Favorite Celebrity Book Nerds

Stephen Colbert
I don’t think this list could be complete without Stephen Colbert! Stephen Colbert, the man behind conservative blowhard parody character “Stephen Colbert,”is a well-known book (and otherwise) nerd, specifically of the sci-fi and high-fantasy type. His love for Tolkien is legendary, and made it into his show in many ways (his nerdery even secured him the coup of having the reclusive Smaug as a guest during his final season). And let’s not forget the famous Colbert Bump! Alongside The Daily Show, The Colbert Report was a reliable place to promote a book. Many authors benefited from Colbert’s star power, and I’m looking forward to seeing even more of Colbert’s bookish side now that he’s removed the quotation marks from his name. The book-nerdiness will remain strong with this one!

Natalie Portman
Beautiful, talented actress (Oh, Black Swan, how I loved you). Mother. UN Ambassador. And apparently also book nerd! She has stated that she was a big reader growing up (she loved the Babysitter’s club and Bridge to Terabithia, just like you!) . And apparently that love carried over into adulthood, as when she switched back to veganism after reading Eating Animals. When asked by O Magazine about reading, she had this to say:
“I think it’s so interesting—how we don’t have to get trapped by our own conventions. I studied psychology in school, and the best psychology is in literature. It’s so much easier to understand a character than a theory. You can recognize yourself—or other people—in a different way.”
Anyone who understands so well what books are for most assuredly gets a book nerd card in my book!

Jeremy Irons
Your favorite man-with-the-unforgettable voice (or perhaps your second favorite, if you, like me, are a diehard Alan Rickman loyalist) is also on this list. Although he’s on record saying it’s “only in recent years” that he’s become a big reader, he’s been a pretty constant presence in literary films and plays for years. Can you think of many movies this man has been in that weren’t inspired by literature? (Or literature about history, at the very, very least?) He began his career as a classically trained stage actor, performing Shakespeare and other timeless works. One of his first big breaks was in a production of The French Lieutenant’s Woman, the famous postmodernist/Victorian story of an affair gone wrong. He went on to star in a still-beloved adaptation of Brideshead Revisited (a work for which he also did an audiobook narration I highly suggest you check out), a movie about Kafka, and, famously, the remake of Lolita in the late 1990s. (Even the cartoon musical he was in is inspired by literature–here’s lookin’ at you, Hamlet as The Lion King.)
He’s also on record as a great appreciator of the written word, starting with The Bard, of course. He’s said, of Shakespeare: “”One of the reasons why Shakespeare shines as the greatest dramatist of all time is he was writing about the human condition. Jealousy, envy, or unrequited love, or the relationship between family members. It’s something that hasn’t changed. So when we see those plays now they still speak to us, they have a resonance, (while) hundreds of plays written since then don’t.”
Welcome to the book nerd club, Mr. Irons!