Claire Danes

Biography of Claire Danes

Claire Catherine Danes was born on April 12, 1979 in New York City. She is an American actress.

Danes was born in New York City to an artist couple. Her mother Carla Danes is a sculptor and graphic artist and also acted as her daughter's manager from 1993 to 1999, her father Christopher Danes is an architectural photographer. She grew up in SoHo with her older brother Asa (b. 1972), who is now a lawyer.

Danes began taking modern dance classes at the age of six and took acting classes at the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute when she was eleven. She then transferred to Junior High School Professional Performing Arts School. Danes says that at the age of nine her focus shifted from dancing to more into acting.

In 1992, she starred in an episodic role on the television series Law & Order. When she was 12, she was offered a role in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List. However, when she could not be promised a private tutor for the time of filming in Poland, her parents rejected the role.

In 1994, she starred opposite Winona Ryder in the film Little Women. She attended the New York City Lab School for Collaborative Studies and the Dalton School for a year before moving to Santa Monica with her parents.

Her starring role on the television series My So-Called Life (1994-1995) earned Danes her first Golden Globe and an Emmy nomination and propelled her and her TV partner Jared Leto to movie stars. Her now higher profile led to more film roles such as the film Home for the Holidays by Jodie Foster. 1996 followed I Love You, I Love You Not and Gillian on Her 37th Birthday.

Her first starring role came in 1996 in a modern take on William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. The film marked her international breakthrough as a film actress. Danes has won awards including the London Critics' Circle Film Award and the MTV Movie Award. Claire Danes was offered the lead role as Rose in Titanic. She declined, however, because she had previously acted with Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo & Juliet and feared she could not "get away from him."

In 1997 she starred in Francis Ford Coppola's The Rainmaker alongside Matt Damon and Danny DeVito and in Oliver Stone's film U-Turn alongside Sean Penn, Nick Nolte and Joaquin Phoenix. In 1997, Danes graduated from the Lycée Français de Los Angeles.

In 1998, after 13 films in five years, she began studying psychology at Yale University, with a letter of recommendation written by Oliver Stone. After two years she broke off her studies to concentrate on her film career again.

In 2002, she starred in Igby and the Oscar-nominated The Hours. 2003 followed Terminator 3 - Rise of the Machines, for which Danes was hired just one day before filming began.

In 2004, she starred in the comedy film Stage Beauty. For her performance in Shopgirl and The Stone Family in 2005, she was praised by critics.

She starred in the 2007 fantasy film Stardust, directed by Matthew Vaughn, alongside Michelle Pfeiffer and Charlie Cox. 2008 in Me & Orson Welles with Zac Efron.

She received an Emmy, her second Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for the title role of autistic animal scientist Temple Grandin in the HBO television movie Temple Grandin. The film was well received and Grandin himself was delighted with Dane's performance.

From 2011 to 2020 she played the lead role of Carrie Mathison in the Showtime series Homeland for 8 seasons, for which she was awarded two Golden Globes and two Emmys in 2012 and 2013. In September 2015, she received the 2559th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2018, she starred in the drama film A Kid Like Jake alongside Jim Parsons and Octavia Spencer.

Claire Danes has had relationships with actor Matt Damon, Australian musician Ben Lee and actor Billy Crudup. Claire Danes has been married to her fellow actor Hugh Dancy since September 2009, whom she met in 2006. The two have two sons (* 2012, * 2018).