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Claire Danes
Danes in Toronto for a MuchOnDemand in promotion of Stardust, 2007
Born	Claire Catherine Danes April 12, 1979 (1979-04-12) (age 30) Manhattan, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1992–present
Spouse(s)	Hugh Dancy (2009-present)

Claire Catherine Danes (born April 12, 1979) is an American actress, perhaps best known for her role as Angela Chase in the television series My So-Called Life, and for starring in films such as Romeo + Juliet (as Juliet) and Stardust (as Yvaine). She has received a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination for My So-Called Life, and has also worked in theatre and as a voice actor (Princess Mononoke).

Early life

Danes was born in Manhattan, New York City, New York.¹ Her mother, Carla, is a day-care provider, painter, and textile designer who later served as her daughter's manager, and her father, Christopher Danes, is a computer consultant and former architectural photographer. Danes has described her background as being "as WASPy as you can get";² her paternal grandfather, Gibson Andrew Danes, (1910-1992 in Litchfield, Connecticut) was the dean of the art and architecture school at Yale University.³⁴ She has an older brother, Asa, who graduated from Oberlin College and works as a litigation attorney for the law firm of Paul Hastings.

Danes attended the Dalton School in New York City, the New York City Lab School for Collaborative Studies, the Professional Performing Arts School,⁵ and the Lycée Français de Los Angeles in Los Angeles, California. In 1998, Danes went to Yale University, her father's alma mater. Oliver Stone wrote her letter of recommendation to Yale.⁵ After studying for two years as a psychology major, she dropped out of Yale to focus on her film career.

Career

Danes in Toronto for a MuchOnDemand in promotion of Stardust, 2007.

In 1994, 15-year-old Danes starred as the 15-year-old Angela Chase in the television drama series My So-Called Life, for which she won a Golden Globe Award and received an Emmy nomination. She played Elizabeth "Beth" March in the 1994 movie adaptation of Little Women. She also appeared as Holly Hunter's daughter in Home for the Holidays, which was directed by Jodie Foster. In 1995 she appeared in a Soul Asylum music video for the song "Just Like Anyone" as an Angel. She portrayed Juliet Capulet in Baz Luhrmann's 1996 film William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, co-starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Romeo Montague. Later that year, she was cited as having turned down the female lead role in Titanic.⁶⁷ Danes, however, said that while she may have been considered for the part, she was never offered the role. In 1999, she made her first appearance in an animated feature with the English version of Princess Mononoke, and took the lead role in Brokedown Palace, alongside Kate Beckinsale and Bill Pullman.

In 2002, Danes starred alongside Susan Sarandon, Kieran Culkin, and Bill Pullman again, in Igby Goes Down. She later co-starred as Meryl Streep's daughter in the Oscar-nominated, The Hours, with Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, and Ed Harris. The following year, she was cast in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, followed by Stage Beauty in 2004. She earned critical acclaim in 2005 when she starred in Steve Martin's Shopgirl alongside Martin and Jason Schwartzman, and in The Family Stone opposite Sarah Jessica Parker and Diane Keaton. In 2007, Danes appeared in the fantasy Stardust, which she described as a "classic model of romantic comedy",⁸ with Charlie Cox, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro, and Sienna Miller, and appeared in The Flock, opposite Richard Gere.

Danes appeared in Off-Broadway plays including Happiness, Punk Ballet, and Kids On Stage, in which she choreographed her own solo dance. She also wrote the introduction to Neil Gaiman's Death: The Time of Your Life. Danes auditioned for the role of Lois Lane in Superman Returns before the role went to Kate Bosworth.

In March 2007, Danes appeared with Patrick Wilson in a television commercial for Gap in which the pair dances to the song " Anything You Can Do" from the musical Annie Get Your Gun. Danes has recently appeared onstage at Manhattan's PS122 an avant-garde performance space, in a series of dance pieces by choreographer Tamar Rogoff. Danes made her stage debut at PS122 as a child.⁹

On October 19, 2007, Danes made her Broadway debut in the revival of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, starring as Eliza Doolittle.¹⁰

Personal life

Danes had her first onscreen kiss in an episode of My So-Called Life before she had one in real life.¹¹ After meeting at her birthday party, she and Australian singer Ben Lee dated for almost six years, their relationship ending in 2003. She also dated actor Leonardo DiCaprio whom she met while filming Romeo + Juliet for 2 years.¹² She has dated Andrew Dorff, actor Stephen Dorff's younger brother, and Matt Damon. Beginning in 2004, she dated her Stage Beauty and Princess Mononoke co-star Billy Crudup, which generated negative publicity due to rumors that their relationship caused the end of Crudup's relationship to then-pregnant Mary-Louise Parker.¹³ Both denied that they were involved prior to the end of Crudup's relationship with Parker. Danes's relationship with Crudup ended in December 2006, amid rumors of an affair by Danes with Hugh Dancy, her co-star in Evening. Danes confirmed on the June 27, 2007 episode of Late Show with David Letterman that she was dating Dancy. Danes, 30, and Dancy, 34, were married in a quiet ceremony in France in 2009.¹⁴

Controversy

In 1998, just after the filming of Brokedown Palace in Manila, she was quoted in Vogue as saying that Manila was a "ghastly and weird city."¹⁵ She further remarked in Premiere that the city "smelled of cockroaches, with rats all over and that there is no sewage system and the people do not have anything — no arms, no legs, no eyes."¹⁵ Kim Atienza, son of then-Mayor of Manila, Lito Atienza, responded to the comments by saying that, "those are irresponsible, bigoted and sweeping statements that we cannot accept."¹⁵ Her films were subsequently banned from being screened in the Philippines.¹⁶ Joseph Estrada, then-President of the Philippines, condemned her publicly,¹⁷ and she was declared persona non grata.¹⁸ Shortly after the incident, Danes issued an apology in Entertainment Weekly to the City of Manila.

Filmography

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Claire Danes

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Claire Danes

• Claire Danes at the Internet Movie Database
• Claire Danes at People.com
• Fresh Air interview, October 26, 2005