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Claire Catherine Danes (born April 12, 1979) is an American actress of television, stage and screen. She is best known for her roles as Angela Chase in My So-Called Life, as Juliet in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet and as Yvaine in Stardust.
Her talent is so amazing. She is a great actrees in America since she played in Romeo & Juliet Movie.
Television
Claire Danes got her start as a guest star on Law and Order in an episode called “Skin Deep”. She also appeared in an episode of HBO’s Lifestories: Families in Crisis entitled “The Coming out of Heidi Leiter”. 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. The show was cancelled after only 19 episodes. However, the show has developed a large cult following in the years since it was cancelled.
Film
Following the cancellation of My So Called Life, Danes transitioned into film. She played Elizabeth “Beth” March in the 1994 film adaptation of Little Women alongside Winona Ryder, Kirsten Dunst, Samantha Mathis, Trini Alvarado, Christian Bale, Susan Sarandon, and Gabriel Byrne. She also appeared as Holly Hunter’s daughter in Home for the Holidays, which was directed by Jodie Foster. Danes appeared opposite French actress Jeanne Moreau, and Jude Law in 1995’s “I Love You, I Love You Not”. She then played the role of Rachel in “To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday”.
Danes first leading role on the big screen came in 1996. 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. Danes, however, said that while she may have been considered for the part, she was never offered the role. In 1997 Claire Danes also worked alongside two acclaimed directors. She played abused wife Kelly Riker in John Grisham’s The Rainmaker directed by Francis Ford Coppola, as well as the trashy, dim-witted Jenny in Oliver Stone’s noir U Turn. In 1998 she played several very different roles: Cosette in Billie August’s film adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel Les Miserables, and the pregnant teenage daughter of Polish immigrants (played by Gabriel Byrne and Lena Olin) in Polish Wedding. In 1999, she made her first appearance in an animated feature with the English version of Princess Mononoke. That same year she played the role of Julie Barnes in the big screen adaptation of the 1970s TV show The Mod Squad, and took the lead role in Brokedown Palace, alongside Kate Beckinsale and Bill Pullman. Then Danes left her career temporarily to pursue her education at Yale.
In 2002, Danes returned to the big screen. She starred alongside Susan Sarandon, Kieran Culkin, and Bill Pullman again, in Igby Goes Down. Later that year 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”, with Charlie Cox, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro, and Sienna Miller, the drama Evening, and appeared in The Flock, opposite Richard Gere.
In 2010, Danes starred in the HBO production of Temple Grandin, a biopic about the eponymous autistic woman. She won the 2010 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie. The film was well received and Grandin herself praised Danes’ performance.
Theater
Danes got her start in New York City theater appearing in performances of “Happiness”, “Punk Ballet”, and “Kids Onstage” for which she choreographed her own dance. In April, 2000 she appeared off Broadway in Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues. In November of that same year she appeared as Emily Webb in a one night only staged reading of Thorton Wilder’s Our Town at All Saint’s Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills. The production was staged by Bess Armstrong who’d played the mother of Danes’ character on My So-Called Life. Also featured in the cast were several other My So-Called Life actors including Tom Irwin, Devon Gummersal and Paul Dooley.
In September 2005, Danes returned to New York’s Performance Space 122 where she’d performed as a child. She appeared in choreographer Tamar Rogoff’s solo dance piece “Christina Olson: American Model” where she portrayed the subject of Andrew Wyeth’s famous painting “Christina’s World”. Olson suffered from muscular deterioration that left her weak and partially paralyzed. “Tamar Rogoff uses her unique body-centric methodology to explore the ideas, spirit and physicality of a woman both rejected and revered.” Danes was praised for her dance skills and the acting talent that she brought to the project.
In January 2007, Danes reunited with Rogoff and Rogoff’s daughter and Danes’ childhood friend Ariel Flavin to perform in Performance Space 122’s “Edith and Jenny”. In the two person dance performance, Danes and Flavin revisited their film and dance roots: “Danes and Flavin encounter their eleven year-old selves on screen, captured in their respective film debuts, Claire as Edith in Dreams of Love, and Ariel as Jenny in Coyote Mountain. Rites of passage unfold in fragments revealing the complexities of two fictional families. The lines between screen and stage, life and art, are blurred as Edith and Jenny, Danes and Flavin, form an alliance, stepping through and beyond their films and the fates of their families.”
Later in 2007 Danes made her Broadway theatre debut as Eliza Doolittle in in the Roundabout Theatre Company revival of George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion”, directed by David Grindley at the American Airlines Theatre.
Personal Life
Danes had her first onscreen kiss in an episode of My So-Called Life before she had one in real life. After having a short relationship with Andrew Dorff, she met Australian singer Ben Lee at her birthday party and dated for almost six years, their relationship ending in 2003. 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. Both denied that they were involved prior to the end of Crudup’s relationship with Parker. Danes’ relationship with Crudup ended in December 2006. Shortly after rumors began to swirl that Danes was romantically involved with her Evening co-star Hugh Dancy. Danes confirmed on the June 27, 2007 episode of Late Show with David Letterman that she was dating Dancy. Danes and Dancy were married in a quiet ceremony in France in 2009.
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.” 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.” 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.” Her films were subsequently banned from being screened in the Philippines. Joseph Estrada, then-President of the Philippines, condemned her publicly, and she was declared persona non grata. Shortly after the incident, Danes attempted to clarify her comments saying “Because of the subject matter of our film Brokedown Palace, the cast was exposed to the darker and more impoverished places of Manila.
My comments in Premiere Magazine only reflect those locations, not my attitude towards the Filipino people. They were nothing but warm, friendly, and supportive.” She issued a public apology in Entertainment Weekly to the City of Manila, and sent the city council an official letter of apology.
Source: http://www.floweradvisor.com.sg/lifestyle/interests/movies/150567/claire_danes_the_american_actress/
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