Did you know that the brilliant actor Aldis Hodge started college at 14? The Cross star and his siblings, including actor Edwin Hodge, didn’t have an easy upbringing. Born in Clifton, New Jersey, the family faced poverty, racism, and violence, which often made their school environment unsafe.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Hodge recalled that his mother decided to homeschool him for safety reasons.
“We lived in a town that dealt with a lot of racism. My mom took us out of school for safety reasons because we were often targeted. So I was homeschooled from, I don’t know, like eight years old up until I started college when I was 14.”
“Mama didn’t play. She knew what she was doing. She knew who she was raising. And with all of my siblings, and my brother, Edwin Hodge, I was 14, he was 15. So we started attending college together at the same time,” Hodge said in an interview on The Jennifer Hudson Show. “My little sister, Brianna Hodge, she started college at 16. She graduated from UCLA in three years at 19.”
But it wasn’t just about protection—it was about preparation. Hodge’s mother was a firm believer that education was the key to breaking free from their circumstances. She instilled in her children a relentless work ethic, making sure they were always ahead in their studies.
@jenniferhudsonshow Aldis Hodge was only 14 when he started college 🤯 #thejenniferhudsonshow #jenniferhudson #aldishodge #jhud ♬ original sound – Jennifer Hudson Show
“Education was our way out of everything. We grew up in poverty, we grew up around a lot of racism, we grew up around a lot of violence, and my mom was always protecting us,” Aldis said to Rolling Stone. She was always shielding us and making sure that we had the right drive and mentality to live a life beyond all of that.”
Hodge’s academic excellence and hunger for knowledge led him to skip high school entirely. After taking an entrance exam.
“The public school couldn’t hold us. They would send me home from school and tell my mom, ‘He’s doing too much.’ So homeschool was really about safety and protection and also the autonomy to still pursue acting. And when we had the opportunity to advance, we did. I took my entrance exam for college and skipped all of high school.”
He began at community colleges like West L.A. College and Santa Monica College, later finding his place at the ArtCenter College of Design.
While acting was always in the picture, Hodge’s mother never let it be the priority—education and business came first.
“‘Acting is the privilege, never the priority,’ my mom used to say. Meaning that we had to earn it. She said, ‘Look, you can get contracts all day, but if you don’t know how to read them,” Aldis told Jennifer Hudson.
Photo Credit: Chris Haston/Warner Bros.
