Hi-5: Five Hottest Women Who Secretly Play Dungeons & Dragons

Natalie Portman

I know that I fell for Miss Portman when I saw her in Beautiful Girls; then Garden State put her over the top. Here is why I think she plays D&D: she is wicked smart. She graduated from Harvard and did graduate studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She speaks Hebrew and has studied French, Japanese, German and Arabic. She has guest lectured at Columbia. There is no way that she has been around that many nerds and not gotten into a few heated games of D&D. I think her character class would be Erudite. The Erudite is an alternative to the standard psion class. It is a psionic character who follows a scholarly and self-reflective road to power, instead of a merely self-conscious path like the psion follows. This class fits her to a tee. She reportedly missed the premier of Episode I because she had to study for her high school finals.

Kristen Bell

She has been quoted as saying that “nerdy is the new cool.” Lets run down the list. Fanboys, a movie about Star Wars fans going to Skywalker ranch -- check. Forgetting Sarah Marshall a movie from the King of the Nerds, Judd Apatow -- check. Comic book style Heroes -- check. Voice of Gossip Girl (sure, you watch it... because your girlfriend makes you) -- no check, but I pity you. So, 3 out of 4 projects with nerds, by nerds, for nerds. Again, she can’t be around that many and not have stumbled upon some 20 sided dice. I think her character class would be the Monk, a martial artist whose unarmed strikes hit fast and hard, a master of exotic powers.

Zooey Deschanel

I know this is going to be the most debatedly hot chick on the list. I personally find her very sexy, and it is my list. I hate to admit this, but I remember falling for her in Almost Famous -- but I really became enamored with her in The New Guy. Yes, I am the one person who saw that movie. Then, in a move which cemented her in nerd lore, she played one of the title characters in the movie adaptation of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. She always plays the quirky sidekick and is now in an indie band call She & He, so it is not a stretch to think that she is sneaking off to dusty basements, not to snort lines, but to progress her character through the situation the dungeon master has thought up. Since she has mastered being hot, acting and singing, I think her character class would be Bard; the Bard is a performer whose music works magic, a wanderer, a tale-teller and a jack of all trades.

Layla Kayleigh

She is a self-professed nerd. She reads "The Economist," she watches Bill Maher, she likes to bowl and she used to work for Al Gore on Current TV. Layla runs the Feed on G4TV’s "Attack of the Show." She is British. If we were betting on which of these five would be the first to step forward and say, “Yes, I constantly roll dice in a non-gambling atmosphere,” she would be the favorite. Layla and Kristen seem to be the most at home in their nerdiness. She has been living on her own since her mother left England for the US when she was 12, so she had to learn at an early age how to gather and process information on her own. Layla has said she was afraid to tell anyone her mother had left for fear that social services would take her away. I think her character class would be Rogue; the Rogue is a tricky, skillful scout and spy who wins battles by stealth rather than brute force.

Scarlett Johansson

Scarlet has come a long way since that slightly pudgy girl in ‘Lost in Translation’. She has gone on to top numerous lists, including Esquire’s Sexiest Woman Alive, and she is the new go-to girl for Woody Allen. She seems smart, or at least she gets cast that way. She is engaged to Van Wilder. She also has a reputation for being a diva, which is the main reason she is on this list. That, and it's a reason for me to stare at pictures of her while I am writing this article. We needed someone who always gets their way, who has to make every decision -- in short, we needed a dungeon master. Step back and think about how many people would be playing Dungeons and Dragons if Scarlett Johansson was their dungeon master. Take some time for the calculations.