Early Life
Danes was born in Manhattan to Chris Danes (a computer consultant and former architectural photographer) and Carla (a day care provider, painter, and textile designer who would later serve as Claire's manager). She attended the Dalton School. She has a brother, Asa, who graduated from Oberlin College and works as a litigation attorney for the law firm of Paul Hastings. Danes attended the exclusive private high school Lycee Français de Los Angeles in Los Angeles, California, and later attended Yale University (her father's alma mater) for two years as a psychology major, starting in 1998. She dropped out of Yale to focus on her film career.
Career
Danes is perhaps most famous as Angela Chase in the 1994 television drama series My So-Called Life, for which she won a Golden Globe Award and received an Emmy nomination, followed by her role as Juliet in Baz Luhrmann's 1996 film William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet.
Her first role in an animated feature came in 1999 with the English version of Princess Mononoke. During the same year, she took the lead role in Brokedown Palace, alongside Kate Beckinsale and Bill Pullman.
She cites Meryl Streep as a mentor and major influence in her acting.[citation needed]
In 2002, Danes starred opposite Susan Sarandon and Kieran Culkin 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; and 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 will appear in the fantasy epic Stardust opposite Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert DeNiro, and Sienna Miller, and 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 also auditioned for the role of "Lois Lane" before the role went to Kate Bosworth.
In March 2007, Danes appeared with Patrick Wilson in a television commercial for the Gap in which the pair dances to the song "Anything You Can Do" from the musical Annie Get Your Gun.
Personal Life
After meeting at her birthday party, she and Australian singer Ben Lee dated for almost six years, but their relationship ended in 2003. She dated her Stage Beauty and Princess Mononoke co-star Billy Crudup, but the pair split in December 2006. Tabloid photographs have recently linked Danes to Evening co-star Hugh Dancy.
Additionally, she has dated Andrew Dorff, actor Stephen Dorff's younger brother, and Matt Damon.
Controversy
While filming Brokedown Palace in Manila, Philippines, Danes made several negative comments about the country and its people which resulted in her being banned from any subsequent visits there. Danes allegedly remarked that Manila was "ghastly and weird" and "smelled of cockroaches," in addition to derogatory remarks about East Asians. Danes, in her defense, explained her comments were misunderstood.
In Popular Culture
Due to her teen angst roles in My So Called Life and Romeo + Juliet, Claire became a sort of sex symbol for punk rock youth in the late 1990s. She was the inspiration of songs by punk bands The Ataris (Claire Danes), Size 14 (Claire Danes Poster), Nice Guys Finish Last (My So Called Strife), and Chocolate Honey Monkey (Claire). Additionally, the Ataris wrote a song expressing disdain for her then boyfriend Ben Lee in the song, Ben Lee, You Suck.
