What was Robin Williams’ IQ?
The “genius IQ” of 140 grew from a Juilliard teacher’s word for his stage talent, not from any test he took.
Robin Williams’s IQ has never been published, and the 140 that circulates for him names no test, date or examiner. What the record does show is a Juilliard place in 1973 (one of two students John Houseman took into the Advanced Program), an Academy Award for Good Will Hunting and five Grammy Awards.
Robin Williams’ estimated IQ
- Awarded a full scholarship to the Juilliard School in 1973 (Group 6, 1973–1976): one of 20 students accepted into the freshman class and, with Christopher Reeve, one of only two taken by John Houseman into the Advanced Program that year.
- Studied political science at Claremont Men’s College before dropping out to pursue acting, then three years of theater at the College of Marin; he left Juilliard in his junior year, 1976, so no completed degree is on record.
- Won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Good Will Hunting at the 70th Academy Awards (March 23, 1998), after Best Actor nominations for Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989) and The Fisher King (1991).
- Five Grammy Awards (1980 to 2003), two Primetime Emmy Awards (1987, 1988), five Golden Globes by the Golden Globes’ own count and the Cecil B. DeMille Award (2005): a record built on live and recorded performance.
No test result exists, and Robin Williams’s estimated IQ rests on a performer’s record: audition-selected training, improvisation, timing and memory for text, which an IQ test samples only in part. He finished no degree at Claremont or Juilliard, so there is no graded academic result to anchor on, and the range is deliberately loose.
- Born
- July 21, 1951, Chicago, Illinois
- Education
- Claremont Men’s College (political science, left); College of Marin (theater, three years); Juilliard School (Group 6, 1973–1976, left in junior year)
- Known for
- Mork and Mindy, Good Morning, Vietnam, Dead Poets Society, Aladdin (voice), Mrs. Doubtfire, Good Will Hunting
- Academy Award
- Best Supporting Actor, Good Will Hunting (70th Academy Awards, March 23, 1998); three earlier Best Actor nominations
- Recordings
- Five Grammy Awards, 1980 to 2003 (comedy, spoken-word and children’s albums)
- Television and Globes
- Two Primetime Emmys (1987, 1988); five Golden Globes, including a special achievement award for Aladdin; Cecil B. DeMille Award (2005)
- Juilliard honor
- Alumnus of the Year, 1991, with an honorary doctorate
- Documented IQ test
- None on record. “140” circulates on listicles with no test, date or examiner
What an IQ of 120–135 actually means
Set the claim aside for a moment. If someone genuinely scored in this range, here is what that would represent.
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.
| Score range | Classification | Share of people | What it indicates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 85 – 114 | Average | ~68% | The range most people fall into. |
| 115 – 129 | Above average | ~13.6% | Roughly one person in seven. |
| 130 – 144 | Gifted | ~2% | The threshold most high-IQ societies use. |
| Above 144 | Highly 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.
Thirty questions gives you a measured position on this exact scale — your score, your percentile and the ability breakdown behind it.
Find out in 30 minutes →Who Robin Williams was
Robin Williams was born on July 21, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois, and attended elementary and junior high school in Lake Forest, Illinois. At 12, in late 1963, he moved to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where he attended the private all-boys Detroit Country Day School, and at 16 to Tiburon, California, where he attended Redwood High School in nearby Larkspur and graduated in 1969. He enrolled at Claremont Men’s College in Claremont, California, to study political science and dropped out to pursue acting. He then studied theater for three years at the College of Marin, a community college in Kentfield, California, where he often improvised during his time in the drama program.
In 1973 Williams won a full scholarship to the Juilliard School in New York City (Group 6, 1973–1976). He was one of 20 students accepted into the freshman class and, with Christopher Reeve, one of only two taken by John Houseman into the school’s Advanced Program that year. He left in his junior year, in 1976, and Juilliard named him its Alumnus of the Year in 1991, presenting the award alongside an honorary doctorate. Improvisation was the center of his craft: Wikipedia’s lead describes him as known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created spontaneously, and EBSCO’s research summary calls him one of the best improvisational comedians of his time. Fluency of speech is something that can be tested on its own (see the verbal fluency test); a live set is not a scored sample of it.
He began performing stand-up in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1976, first at the Holy City Zoo, and later moved to Los Angeles, where he worked clubs including the Comedy Store. In 1978 Garry Marshall cast him as the alien Mork in the Happy Days episode “My Favorite Orkan,” which led to Mork and Mindy, broadcast from 1978 to 1982. His first leading film role was Popeye (1980). He played Adrian Cronauer in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), an English teacher in Dead Poets Society (1989) and the Genie in the animated Aladdin (1992), and a divorced father who impersonates a nanny in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993).
Good Will Hunting, directed by Gus Van Sant and released on December 5, 1997, brought the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, against nominees Robert Forster, Anthony Hopkins, Greg Kinnear and Burt Reynolds; Matt Damon and Ben Affleck won Best Original Screenplay at the same ceremony. The Academy’s ceremony pages also list his Best Actor nominations at the 60th (April 11, 1988), 62nd (March 26, 1990) and 64th (March 30, 1992) Academy Awards. The Recording Academy credits him with five Grammy Awards: 1980 for Reality … What a Concept, 1988 for A Night at the Met, two in 1989 (Good Morning, Vietnam and Pecos Bill) and 2003 for Robin Williams – Live 2002. The Television Academy lists two Emmys, both for individual performances in variety or music programs (1987, 1988), and the Golden Globes list five wins, the last for Mrs. Doubtfire (1994), plus the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2005.
By Elora Mercer, Celebrity Research WriterFigures checked by Leon Falkner, Data & Research AnalystReviewed by Aarav Vardhan, Editor-in-Chief · Last reviewed August 2026
Robin Williams: 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.
- 1951Born July 21 in Chicago, Illinois.
- 1969Graduates from Redwood High School in Larkspur, California.
- 1973Awarded a full scholarship to Juilliard; with Christopher Reeve, one of two students John Houseman takes into the Advanced Program.
- 1976Leaves Juilliard in his junior year and begins stand-up in the San Francisco Bay Area at the Holy City Zoo.
- 1978Cast by Garry Marshall as Mork in a Happy Days episode; Mork and Mindy runs 1978–1982.
- 1980Wins his first Grammy, Best Comedy Recording, for Reality … What a Concept; first leading film role in Popeye.
- 1988Nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for Good Morning, Vietnam (60th Academy Awards, April 11, 1988); wins the Golden Globe for the role.
- 1991Named Juilliard School Alumnus of the Year and receives an honorary doctorate.
- 1998Wins the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Good Will Hunting (70th Academy Awards, March 23, 1998).
- 2005Receives the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 62nd Golden Globe Awards.
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.
What was Robin Williams’s IQ? Search the question and the Robin Williams IQ score that comes back is 140, and none of the pages that print it names a test, an examiner or a date. celebrityiqs.com posts “IQ: 140” under a standing line that its scores are “not guaranteed”; sociosite.net says it is “claimed at 140 IQ”; iqtesta.com says “at least 140”; iqtestprep.com says “It is estimated.” check-iq.org lists 140 from four outlets, rating The Richest and Herald Weekly Medium confidence and IQ-test.net and Daily Choices Low. The oldest dated page we opened is The Richest’s list of October 31, 2017, which prints “140 IQ” beside his name and says only that he was “equipped with an intelligence that rarely is matched in society”; it does not say how the figure was determined.
The “genius” half of the claim has a traceable origin, and it is a teacher’s verdict on talent, not a score. Wikipedia reports that Gerald Freedman, one of his Juilliard teachers, called Williams a “genius” and said the school’s conservative, classical training did not suit him; UNCSA, where Freedman was later drama dean, lists Williams among his Juilliard students. sociosite.net then joins the two ideas, writing that his “IQ of 140 made him a ‘genius,’ according to his Juilliard teacher” Gerald Freedman. That reverses the evidence: Freedman’s word describes what Williams could do on a stage, and nothing we found says Freedman or anyone at Juilliard tested him. fictionhorizon.com (December 16, 2025) runs the same chain, writing that his IQ “was reported to be around 140 and his teachers often marveled at his genius.” A genius-level IQ is a test result, which is the thing missing.
The number does not hold together on its own terms either. iqtesta.com calls 140 “at least” gifted and “top 2% of the population,” but on a scale with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, an IQ of 140 is about 2.7 standard deviations above the mean, roughly the top 0.4%; the top 2% begins near 131. Williams himself turned the label down: Far Out Magazine quotes him, from a Playboy interview it does not date, saying he could not call himself a genius and got “flashes once in a while.” The wider pattern, a copied number that gains authority by repetition, is traced in where celebrity IQ numbers come from.
Did Robin Williams have a high IQ? Probably above average, which is as far as a record without a test can go, and this site’s range of 120–135 sits level with Matt Damon’s. The two share a film: at the 70th Academy Awards, on March 23, 1998, Williams won Best Supporting Actor for Good Will Hunting, playing the therapist Dr. Sean Maguire, while Damon and Ben Affleck won the screenplay award; the genius in the film is Damon’s character, Will Hunting, not Williams’s. The range sits below Rowan Atkinson’s 125–140, another comedian whose circulating figure is unsourced but whose range rests on completed degrees from Newcastle and Oxford. Williams left Claremont Men’s College and Juilliard without a degree, so his record is a performer’s, and a performance gives less to anchor an estimate on than a graded academic result.
How we read a number →Confirms Williams as a Best Actor nominee for Good Morning, Vietnam, Dead Poets Society and The Fisher King, and as the Best Supporting Actor winner for Good Will Hunting on March 23, 1998, with the other nominees.
Grammy.com lists 5 wins and 9 nominations with the winning works; the Television Academy lists 9 Emmy nominations and 2 wins (1987, 1988); the Golden Globes list 11 nominations and 5 wins (1979, 1988, 1992, 1993 special achievement for Aladdin, 1994).
Confirms Freedman taught at Yale and at Juilliard, where his students included Robin Williams: the teacher behind the “genius” remark.
Birth, schooling (Redwood High School, Claremont Men’s College, College of Marin), Juilliard (Group 6, 1973–1976; Houseman and Reeve), Freedman’s “genius” remark, stand-up and Mork and Mindy dates, film roles, the 2005 DeMille Award and the Good Will Hunting cast and release details.
Identifies Q83338 as the American actor and comedian (1951–2014), born July 21, 1951, and lists Juilliard (1973–1976), Claremont, Detroit Country Day School, Redwood High School and the College of Marin under “educated at”.
Independent summary confirming the Juilliard advanced program with Christopher Reeve under John Houseman, Mork and Mindy running 1978 to 1982, the 1998 supporting-actor Oscar and his reputation as an improvisational comedian.
Auction catalog entry giving the 1991 Alumnus of the Year Award alongside his honorary doctorate and restating the 20-student freshman class and the two Advanced Program places.
Quotes Williams, from a Playboy interview it does not date, saying he could not call himself a genius and had “flashes once in a while.”
Source of the circulating 140. None names a test, examiner or date; celebrityiqs.com carries a “not guaranteed” disclaimer; sociosite.net ties 140 to Freedman’s “genius” remark; check-iq.org credits The Richest, Herald Weekly, IQ-test.net and Daily Choices.
No school, testing-body, clinical or media record of an administered test was found, and Riot IQ (August 18, 2026) reports that no interview exchange has surfaced in which Williams stated a score.
The sources behind our estimate
The figures that circulate for Robin Williams, what we were able to confirm, and where the two diverge.
The Robin Williams IQ score that circulates is 140. celebrityiqs.com posts “IQ: 140”, sociosite.net says it is “claimed” at 140, iqtesta.com says “at least 140”, iqtestprep.com says it “is estimated”, fictionhorizon.com says it was “reported to be around 140”, popwire.com calls it a “reported IQ number”, and check-iq.org lists 140 from four outlets (The Richest, Herald Weekly, IQ-test.net, Daily Choices).
We found no published IQ test result for Robin Williams. None of the eight pages we opened that print 140 names a test, an examiner or a date. celebrityiqs.com says its scores are “not guaranteed” and “for entertainment purposes only”; iqtestprep.com says the same of its site and tests; popwire.com describes its figures as “public, reported IQ figures, not sealed medical records”; check-iq.org rates The Richest and Herald Weekly Medium confidence and IQ-test.net and Daily Choices Low. The Richest’s entry (October 31, 2017) prints “140 IQ” and says only that he was “equipped with an intelligence that rarely is matched in society.” Riot IQ’s page on the question (August 18, 2026) says the 140 “has no primary source at all.” The one concrete thread is a teacher’s word, “genius”, which sociosite.net turns into a score.
The documented record supports a range that tops out five points below the circulating number, a smaller gap than many actors on this site show. That does not make 140 sourced: it is a round figure repeated across pages that copy one another, and the sourced record points lower.
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.
Robin Williams — frequently asked
What is Robin Williams’s IQ?
Robin Williams’s IQ was never published: no test result exists, and the 140 that circulates traces to no named test, date or examiner. What is documented is a place in Juilliard’s Advanced Program in 1973, a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Good Will Hunting and five Grammy Awards. This site’s estimated range is 120–135.
What was Robin Williams’s IQ score?
The only Robin Williams IQ score that circulates is 140, printed by celebrityiqs.com, sociosite.net, check-iq.org, iqtesta.com and others. None names a test, and celebrityiqs.com says its scores are “not guaranteed.” On a mean-100, standard-deviation-15 scale, 140 would sit in roughly the top 0.4% of the population.
Did Robin Williams have a high IQ?
There is no test result to confirm it. His documented record, a Juilliard Advanced Program place, a long improvisational career and an Academy Award, is consistent with an above-average IQ. An estimate of 120–135 would fall between roughly the top 9% and the top 1%, but it is an inference, not a measurement.
Was Robin Williams a genius?
A teacher called him one. Wikipedia reports that Gerald Freedman, who taught him at Juilliard, called Williams a “genius”, a verdict on his stage talent. Williams himself, quoted by Far Out Magazine from a Playboy interview, said he could not call himself a genius and got “flashes once in a while.”
Did Robin Williams take an IQ test?
No IQ test is documented. We found no school, testing-body or media record of one, and Riot IQ reports that no interview has surfaced in which Williams gave a score. The 140 on celebrity-IQ sites is an estimate copied between pages, so it cannot be treated as a measurement.
Where does the Robin Williams genius IQ of 140 come from?
No source is named. The nearest thread is Juilliard teacher Gerald Freedman calling him a “genius”; sociosite.net states that Williams’s IQ of 140 made him one, according to Freedman, though Freedman’s remark was about his stage talent. check-iq.org credits four outlets (The Richest, Herald Weekly, IQ-test.net, Daily Choices); The Richest, the one we opened, names no test.
How does Robin Williams’s estimated IQ compare with Matt Damon’s and Rowan Atkinson’s?
Williams’s estimated range of 120–135 matches Matt Damon’s and sits below Rowan Atkinson’s 125–140. Williams won the supporting-actor Oscar for Good Will Hunting while Damon won for its screenplay. Atkinson’s range rests on completed Newcastle and Oxford degrees; Williams completed no degree. All three figures are estimates, not scores.
How does my IQ compare with Robin Williams?
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.
- Take the 30-question IQ test — get a measured score and percentile of your own
- Average IQ by country — how the scale behaves across populations
- How IQ Metrics scores its assessment — the method behind our own number
- More on how IQ testing works — reliability, error and what a score can and cannot say
- More actors profiles — same field, same method
More actors
Photograph by Eva Rinaldi, CC BY-SA 2.0. Background removed for the portrait above. · Photograph by Montclair Film, CC BY 4.0. Background removed for the portrait above. · Photograph by iDominick (PaleyFest, March 2013), CC BY-SA 2.0. Background removed for the portrait above.
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