Elisabeth Shue Photo by: Michael Germana / Starmaxinc
Elisabeth Shue
 | Elisabeth Shue
She was nominated for an Oscar, then disappeared into the ivory tower. Now Elisabeth Shue, who returned to Harvard in 2000 to finish her bachelor's degree, is back on the big screen in Hide and Seek, a spooky thriller costarring Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning, and Mysterious Skin, an entry at the Sundance Film Festival. The actress, 41, who earned her Academy Award nod for 1995's Leaving Las Vegas, also focused on family in the meantime, with daughter Stella, 3, joining son Miles, 7. Shue recently chatted about taking a hiatus from Hollywood, sharing an alma mater with Natalie Portman and enjoying the horror of working on her new film.

Where have you been the past few years?
Oh gosh, okay. Well, right after (2000's) Hollow Man, I went back to school. I went back for a whole entire semester and I had five credits to make up in college. So I graduated with my diploma.

In what?
Political science.

How did your classmates react when they realized who you were?
Harvard is so filled with students with such accomplishment that they probably looked down on me for being an actress. I don't think that they were really that impressed.

Natalie Portman went there, too.
I saw her many times walking through the yard. I never went up to say hi because I thought that it would be strange to just walk up and say, "Hi. We're the two animals in the zoo." But yeah, it was cool that she was there at the same time. I think that it also helped my anonymity because there was already someone there who was already much more famous there on the campus.

Do you think you'll ever go back to academics?
I still think about it. One day. I really still have a fantasy of getting my master's, maybe in a different subject, (and) that I would be interested in teaching one day.