Eight of the best from Claire Danes
A Hollywood star while still a teenager, Claire Danes has become one of the most decorated actors of her time.
A winner of three Emmys, four Golden Globes and two Screen Actors Guild Awards, she made the leap from movies to TV more than 10 years ago and hasn’t really looked back.
Now on screen in Apple TV+’s superb Victorian drama The Essex Serpent, Danes delivers a luminous turn as the inquisitive and determined Cora Seaborne.
To celebrate, Stuff to Watch has taken a look back over the now 43-year-old’s career so far and come up with our favourite performances (and where you can watch them).
Homeland (Disney+)
The double-Emmy-winning role that defines Danes for many viewers. Over eight seasons, she essayed the brilliant, but troubled, Carrie Mathison, a bipolar CIA operative attempting to stave off various terrorist threats to America and the global peace – with varying degrees of success.
Little Women (YouTube, GooglePlay, iTunes) Before Greta Gerwig’s recent Oscar-winning adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved 1868 novel, there was this equally star-studded 1994 version helmed by Australian Gillian Armstrong.
Starring Kirsten Dunst, Winona Ryder, Christian Bale, Susan Sarandon and Trini Alvarado, Danes shone as the illfated Beth March.
My So Called Life (Disney+) Still fondly remembered as one of the most under-rated shows of its time, Danes delivered a standout turn in this short-lived 1994 series. She plays Angela Chase, a 15-year-old girl trying to navigate a path through the perils of high school, friends, guys and parents.
The Rainmaker (YouTube, GooglePlay, iTunes)
This 1997 Francis Ford Coppoladirected tale focuses on newly minted attorney Rudy Baylor (Matt Damon) who teams up with Danny DeVito’s paralegal Deck Shiflet to take on an insurance company which is refusing to cover a woman’s dying son. Danes plays an abused wife with whom Baylor becomes romantically entangled.
Stardust
(GooglePlay, iTunes)
In Matthew Vaughn’s 2007 fantasy Tristan (Charlie Cox) ventures into the realm of fairies to retrieve what he believes to
be a fallen star, but is actually a woman named Yvaine (Danes).
Temple Grandin (DVD from Aro Video, Alice’s) Danes rightly won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for playing the eponymous autistic animal husbandry expert in this compelling 2010 biopic. Her innovations revolutionised practices for the humane handling of livestock on cattle ranches and in slaughterhouses.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
(Amazon Prime Video) Although a definite drop in quality from 1991’s magnificent Judgment Day, there’s a lot to
love about Jonathan Mostow’s 2003 three-quel. Danes is superb as feisty veterinarian Kate Brewster, as she and Nick Stahl’s John Connor attempt to thwart Skynet’s plans.
William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet
(Disney+) Updating the bard’s classic text for the MTV generation in 1996, Australian director Baz Luhrmann added modern meanings to the tale of starcrossed lovers (played by Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio) and backed the poetry up with a cadre of especially written evocative songs by Radiohead, The Cardigans and Kym Mazelle.