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What is Geena Davis’ IQ?
A real membership, and a score nobody has.

Geena Davis at the 53rd Saturn Awards, 2026
Geena Davisb. 1956 · Film, advocacy

Davis is one of the few people on this site with a genuinely documented claim behind her number: she is an acknowledged member of American Mensa. What she does not have, anywhere on record, is a specific score — the “140” attached to her name traces to a tabloid headline, not to Mensa.

Our estimate130–145
MethodTest-anchored estimate
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Last reviewed August 2026
Our estimate

Geena Davis’ estimated IQ

IQ Metrics estimate130–145Test-anchored estimate (Mensa qualification)
What the estimate rests on
  • Acknowledged Mensa membership, which requires scoring in the top 2 percent on an accepted test — roughly 131 or above on the Cattell scale Mensa itself uses.
  • Attended New England College and Boston University’s College of Fine Arts, though by her own account in her 2022 memoir she left before completing a degree.
  • Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (The Accidental Tourist, 1989), and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award — an honorary Oscar — in 2019.

Mensa membership sets a real floor, not a score. It confirms she qualified above roughly the 98th percentile on some accepted test at some point, and nothing more specific than that is on record anywhere, including from Mensa itself.

At a glance
Born
21 January 1956, Wareham, Massachusetts
Field
Film, television, advocacy
Education
New England College; Boston University College of Fine Arts (no degree completed)
Known for
The Accidental Tourist, Thelma & Louise, the Geena Davis Institute
Canonical IQ
No published score; Mensa membership confirmed
Context

What an IQ of 130–145 actually means

Set the claim aside for a moment. If someone genuinely scored in this range, here is what that would represent.

Where a figure of 140 would sitOn the standard scale (mean 100, SD 15). This marks the claimed figure — it is not a measured result.
140
Below averageLow averageAverageAbove averageGiftedHighly gifted

Average is 100 by construction, and about two-thirds of people fall between 85 and 115. Take the test to place your own score on this scale.

Standard scale, mean 100, standard deviation 15
Score rangeClassificationShare of peopleWhat it indicates
85 – 114Average~68%The range most people fall into.
115 – 129Above average~13.6%Roughly one person in seven.
130 – 144Gifted~2%The threshold most high-IQ societies use.
Above 144Highly gifted~0.1%Figures above this range are extrapolated from the curve rather than measured.

Percentages are approximate and describe a normal distribution. The same number means different things on tests with different standard deviations.

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Background

Who Geena Davis is

Geena Davis was born in 1956 in Wareham, Massachusetts. She attended New England College before transferring to Boston University’s College of Fine Arts to study drama; by her own account she left before completing enough credits to graduate, something she has said she let go uncorrected in early interviews.

She made her film debut in Tootsie (1982) and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Accidental Tourist in 1989. Thelma & Louise (1991) brought a Best Actress nomination, which she did not win. In 1999, at forty-three, she came within eight places of qualifying for the U.S. Olympic archery team, reaching the trials semifinals after two years of training.

In 2004 she founded the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, researching representation in film and television. In 2019 the Academy gave her the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, an honorary Oscar, for that advocacy work — making her, by the Institute’s own description, a two-time Academy Award recipient.

Record

Geena Davis: the documented record

The estimate above rests on this record. Every entry here is a matter of public fact, which is more than can be said for the number itself.

  1. 1982Film debut in Tootsie.
  2. 1989Wins the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, The Accidental Tourist.
  3. 1991Thelma & Louise released; earns a Best Actress nomination.
  4. 1999Reaches the U.S. Olympic archery trials semifinals, finishing 24th of 28.
  5. 2004Founds the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media.
  6. 2006Wins a Golden Globe for Commander in Chief.
  7. 2019Receives the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
Where it came from

Where the 140 figure came from

Following a claim back to its first appearance is the part almost nobody does — and it is what most people are actually asking.

Geena Davis at the 53rd Saturn Awards, 2026
2019Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award

Most figures on this site are invented outright. Davis’s is a subtler failure: a real, on-record fact — Mensa membership — got a specific number bolted onto it that nobody involved ever stated. It is worth naming precisely, because it shows how a headline’s URL can outrun its own article and end up cited as if it were reporting.

She sits alongside Mayim Bialik as one of two entries here with a credential that is actually checkable rather than asserted — Bialik’s is a completed PhD, Davis’s is a membership requiring a passed test. Both pages exist to make the same point: verifiable claims and specific scores are not the same thing, and this site can only stand behind the one that is documented.

How we read a number
PrimaryDavis, Geena (2022). Dying of Politeness. HarperCollins.

Her own memoir; source for the New England College and Boston University chronology and her account of not completing a degree.

InstitutionalGeena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, official biography

The organization she founded; its bio of her does not mention Mensa or any IQ figure.

InstitutionalAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Governors Awards records (2019); 61st Academy Awards records (1989)

Confirm the Best Supporting Actress win and the later Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

SecondaryTMZ, 26 April 2011

On-camera exchange in which Davis confirms Mensa membership and describes the qualifying test — without stating a score.

Aggregator“Smartest actresses” lists and IQ-comparison sites citing 140

First-appearance date of the 140 figure pending audit.

Traceable to a tabloid URL slug rather than any statement by Davis, Mensa, or the article body it was attached to.

The evidence

The sources behind our estimate

The figures that circulate for Geena Davis, what we were able to confirm, and where the two diverge.

Most widely cited140

A figure of 140 circulates on “smartest actresses” lists and IQ-aggregator sites, usually paired with her Mensa membership as if the two facts came from the same source.

What we foundMembership confirmed; the number is not

Davis has confirmed her own Mensa membership on the record — asked by a photographer in 2011 how to get into Mensa, she answered plainly, “You gotta take the test.” No specific score has ever been published, by her, by Mensa, or by any outlet that spoke to either. The “140” traces to a tabloid article whose own body text never states the number — it appears only in the page’s URL slug, which downstream sites then repeated as if it were a reported fact.

Also published elsewhere
131140145

One end of this spread is Mensa’s actual qualifying floor. The number in the middle, the one everyone repeats, came from a URL.

Want a number that does hold up? Every figure on this page is somebody’s claim. Take the 30-question test and get a percentile you can check rather than a figure you have to trust.

Questions

Geena Davis — frequently asked

What is Geena Davis’s IQ?

No specific score has ever been published. She has confirmed her own Mensa membership on the record, which sets a floor around the 98th percentile, but no number beyond that exists.

Is Geena Davis really a Mensa member?

Yes — in 2011, asked on camera how to join, she replied, “You gotta take the test,” confirming her own membership.

Where does the “140 IQ” figure for Geena Davis come from?

It traces to a tabloid article whose URL slug included the number; the article’s own text never states it, and Mensa has never published a score for her.

Did Geena Davis graduate from Boston University?

By her own account in her 2022 memoir, no — she left before completing enough credits, though she let the assumption that she’d graduated stand for years.

Which Oscar did Geena Davis win for?

Best Supporting Actress, for The Accidental Tourist (1989). Thelma & Louise earned her a Best Actress nomination two years later, which she did not win.

How does Davis’s case compare to others on this site?

Like Mayim Bialik, she has a credential that is genuinely checkable — here, Mensa membership rather than an asserted number. It is one of the few entries where the underlying claim holds up; only the specific figure attached to it does not.

How does my IQ compare with Geena Davis?

You can find out in about fifteen minutes. The IQ Metrics assessment is 30 questions, scored on the same 100-mean scale used throughout this page, so your result and the estimate above are at least expressed in the same units — one measured, one inferred. Once you have a number, the leaderboard shows where it would sit, and how we score and norm it explains the benchmarking.

Where does this estimate come from?

From the documented record rather than a test — the method is named above and set out in full under how we read a number. Compare it against the other actors profiles, starting with Natalie Portman.

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Portrait © Matthew Yohe, CC BY-SA 3.0. The background-removed portrait above is a derivative work and is likewise offered under the same licence. · Portrait © Debbie Rowe / The Royal Society, CC BY-SA 3.0. The background-removed portrait above is a derivative work and is likewise offered under the same licence. · Portrait by Christopher Smith, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — a work of the U.S. federal government, public domain. Background removed for the portrait above.

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