Britt Robertson’s Graduation

Though the actress Britt Robertson was homeschooled, she experienced her fair share of high school drama playing a teen looking for her parents in the 2010 CW series Life Unexpected; a young witch on the 2011 show The Secret Circle, also on CW; and a student grappling with first love in the 2012 Sundance Film Festival favorite The First Time.

“I’ve gone to prom multiple times, had fights with the principal, a relationship with my teacher,” says the Greenville, South Carolina, native and oldest of seven children. “When people ask if I wish I had gone to high school, I tell them that I’ve acted all of that stuff out, and it just doesn’t seem like fun.”

The same cannot be said of her latest role, opposite George Clooney, in the sci-fi adventure Tomorrowland, slated for release next year. Robertson, who is 23, once again plays a teen—this time one who stumbles upon an alternate reality. Her famously dashing costar, she says, was “so not what you’d expect. During our scenes together, he’d pull out his phone and play fart noises.”

Robertson got her start in community theater at age 10. “I never had a speaking role; I was always Orphan Number Six or a monkey,” she says. At 14, she got an agent and moved with her grandmother to L.A., where she’s lived ever since. The baby-faced actress plans to stay at least a few more decades. “If I can play 15 when I am 25, I can play 35 when I’m 55,” she says. “That’s going to be my argument.”