Two-time Emmy Award winner Claire Danes says there was a phase after she did TV movie Temple Grandin when she had less patience for essaying “the girlfriend role”.
Danes started her career at 14 with My So-Called Life, later embarked on a film career and then returned to the small screen and experienced a career rebirth through Temple Grandin, followed by seven seasons playing a bipolar CIA officer. She reflected on her journey during an interview for The Hollywood Reporter.
“It was an awkward period because I felt so stretched and so revived and robust as a performer, I felt very alive and ready, and there just wasn’t anything worthy of attaching myself to,” Danes said of the year or so after her portrayal of an autistic livestock expert in the 2010 TV movie Temple Grandin, for which she won Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards.
“After having met that challenge creatively, I just had less patience for ‘the girlfriend role’, and I just couldn’t bring myself to do something two-dimensional, so I chose not to do anything at all, which was tough. It was kind of crushing after a certain point,” she said.
Later, Danes received two offers — one was to play a secretary in Clint Eastwood’s J Edgar opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, her co-lead in Romeo + Juliet 15 years earlier, and the other was to star as a CIA officer in a pilot for drama series “Homeland”.