COVER STORY: CLAIRE DANES
She plays a volatile, highly strung CIA agent on Homeland, which has been renewed for a seventh season. But in reality, Claire Danes tends to take life with a pinch of salt.
‘Homeland is like a diamond that fell from the sky’
While Claire Danes plays the intense Carrie Mathison on American TV series Homeland, in real life she couldn’t be more different. She throws costume parties and often has craft days with friends as well as her husband, Hugh Dancy, at their home in New York. ‘I feel like I’ve gotten younger as I’ve aged. It’s a young mistake to assume that life is very serious. I get the joke now,’ she told Allure magazine.
Claire grew up in New York. Her parents were art school graduates who put their artistic endeavours on hold to make it in the big city. ‘My mom and dad dragged me to everything – every art opening, every obscure dance performance. I was flooded from an early age with a lot of brilliant stuff.’
It was while watching Madonna on TV at the age of five that she first ‘registered that performing could be a job’. In 1992 she landed the part of 15-year-old Angela Chase in My So-Called Life. Despite being a hit, the show was cancelled after one season. Still, Claire picked up a Golden Globe for her performance, and caught the attention of the film industry. She starred in 1994’s Little Women and shone opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet.
At 20, Claire decided to take a break from acting. ‘I didn’t have a sensibility, a value system, an aesthetic. I needed that time in school to be clear on who I was and what kind of career I wanted,’ she says. So she studied psychology at Yale, but after two years decided to go back to acting. She took roles in Stage Beauty, and Shopgirl, written by Steve Martin. She also acted in The Hours with Meryl Streep, and met her husband on the set of the romantic drama Evening. But the film that really pushed her was Temple Grandin, a biopic about the autistic professor and animal welfare activist. Claire relished the challenge of playing Grandin, and worked with choreographer Tamar Rogoff to study her every move. ‘We had to change the way she held her head,’ said Rogoff. ‘I had to pull her chin all the way back, because if you’re autistic you’re not communicating with the world – you’re communicating within.’ Claire received several awards, including an Emmy and a Golden Globe, for her portrayal.
After such an affirming experience, she wanted something that would push her even further. But it would be two years before such a role came along. ‘It was a nightmare,’ she told Marie Claire this year. ‘I was in such agony. I’d been so stimulated and energised, and I felt really robust and capable and eager. But I couldn’t go back to the ingénue role or the limited secretary-type roles. I wanted to play
someone who would move the story forward.’ And that’s exactly what she got in the form of Homeland’s Carrie Mathison, a bipolar CIA agent who fights the threat of terrorism. ‘My goal is always to do something that feels just beyond my reach; Homeland continues to do that… Every season, they find new ways to scare me. I’ll always feel slightly bludgeoned by [the show], but in the best way possible.’
Claire’s portrayal of Carrie has earned her two Emmys, two Golden Globes and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame – as well as Barack Obama’s praise. At a White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, Obama revealed just how much he liked the show. ‘He said, “Claire, you’re a fine actress,”’ she told Allure magazine. ‘And I said, like a total idiot, “You’re a fine president.”’
Claire did a lot of preparation for playing a bipolar character, and her ability to physically transform during Carrie’s manic episodes is remarkable. ‘I don’t even know how it happens, but I start shaking. My body expresses it. It’s not necessarily a conscious decision,’ Claire told The New Yorker. Her notorious ‘cry face’ actually became a meme, with Anne Hathaway spoofing her on Saturday Night Live. But Claire says she doesn’t mind compromising her looks for a role. ‘I want to give as honest a performance as I can,’ she told Allure. ‘So I’m not worried about being regarded as beautiful when I’m playing a character. I want to look pretty in the world, but it can be this bottomless pit. I know some of the most beautiful women on the planet – unequivocally friggin’ gorgeous – and they’re rife with insecurity and self-doubt. I’m attractive enough. I can do the work I want to do. I’ve found this wonderful man who wants to make out with me. I’m good.’
Well said! And more on that man of hers… Hugh is a British actor and model best known for playing Will Graham in the series Hannibal. He and Claire landed roles in the 2007 film Evening, written by Michael Cunningham (who officiated their 2009 wedding in the south of France). ‘[Hugh and I] met in Rhode Island when it was at its most audaciously beautiful, in the fall. We were cycling near the water, and it was sparkly and idyllic, and I had this dumb epiphany, like, “I’m really just happy”.’
Claire loves married life, describing it as ‘wonderful’ and ‘challenging’. She and Hugh have a four-year-old son, Cyrus. Because of Homeland’s multiple filming locations, Cyrus has lived in Berlin and Cape Town. While he didn’t acquire the South African accent, he did take on one of our habitual expressions: ‘shame’. ‘That’s quite a common “South Africanism”,’ Claire told Ellen DeGeneres on her talk show. ‘It’s like a sign of sympathy or empathy: “Ah shame, man.”’ She added that South Africa is ‘amazing’.
While the show was in New York, Claire enjoyed being at home, watching her son grow up in a familiar environment. ‘Cyrus changes daily; it’s wild, the rate of growth. I’m excited by this phase. It’s fun to see the world with him,’ she said.
So what would her perfect day look like? It would include breakfast with Cyrus and Hugh, a walk to the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan, a stroll on the High Line (a public park in Manhattan built on an abandoned section of railway), a nap with Cyrus, then an evening with The Litwits, a fun book club she has with her friends. ‘We have a library that we’ve built over time. You borrow a book, give your take on it and maybe contribute a couple of new offerings,’ she told The New Yorker. ‘Basically, we just drink wine, eat food and gossip about boys.’ This year, we’ll see Claire in Brigsby Bear, a comedy drama that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. ‘I’d love to do a comedy,’ she told Allure in 2015. ‘I’d love to play somebody who’s much more low-key and of this planet… I’d like to not save the world for a second.’