‘I’d barely kiss a boy, but I’d have sex with an Adonis’: Claire Danes on sex, spy camp, and teen stardom | television

IIn the new thriller The Beast in Me, a memoirist takes on an evil real estate developer who may or may not have killed his first wife, and it’s not entirely clear which is more dangerous. Netflix has described it as a “cat and mouse,” but Claire Danes prefers to think of it as more of a cross between a snake and a ferret.

“I liked the idea of ​​a writer being really dangerous and predatory,” she says of her character, Aggie Wiggs — who is grieving the loss of her young son and living as a lonely divorcee in a big house she can’t afford — and who is fascinated by her new neighbor. Nile Jarvis (I can agree with everything in the engaging eight-part series, except perhaps the name of almost every character) is certainly brutal, and she may also be a murderer, but she may have found a match, because she’s “a real fighter, with not much to lose.”

When they met, explosively, Agee was on the tail end of the success of his best-selling memoir, and out of money. Her marriage has collapsed following the death of their son in an accident, and Aggie’s behavior towards the young man she believes is responsible has resulted in a restraining order being issued to her. “I’ve come to really enjoy her company,” Danis says. “She is in a lot of pain that she doesn’t quite admit to herself, but I admired her intellect, her intellectual integrity, her chutzpah, and, ultimately, the depth of her feelings.”

Agee suffers from writer’s block in her new book, a cringe-worthy analysis across the political divide between US Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia. “I think it’s a story that can offer hope,” Aggie says, uncertainly, over lunch with Nile (Matthew Rhys), her new, evil friend. “Nobody wants hope,” he snaps back. “People want gossip and carnage.” Unfortunately, he’s not wrong, but what we want and what we need are rarely the same. Try befriending a sociopath who might end up manifesting your darkest desires and see how that plays out (it’s not a spoiler to say: not ideal).

Their dynamic is made more fun and refreshing, because there’s no romantic subtext — Aggie is a lesbian, but Nile is a sociopath and rich, so, of course, he thinks she wants to have sex with him. “They’re really passionate about each other, they struggle for power with each other, but they’re also really happy with each other,” Danes says when we talk over Zoom. “They’re kind of soulmates, but they’re adversaries, and gender doesn’t come into play. That was interesting. I’ve never played that game before, never really seen it before.”

Was she nervous about playing a lesbian character and how that might be perceived at a time when we wonder whether ostensibly straight people — Danes is married to actor Hugh Dancy, with whom she has three children — should take on queer roles? “Oh, that’s interesting,” she says. “No, I wasn’t, to be honest, but maybe I should have been.” Thoughtful and intelligent as the Danes are, I can’t tell if she’s a bit devious. But it was interesting that she wasn’t considered “sexy” for a male character, perhaps for the first time in her career. “As a girl, I had to learn how to cultivate and carry a more feminine influence,” she says. She remembers consciously training herself to walk in a more attractive way. “And suddenly in this role, I felt like I could let go of some of that. I felt like I was 11 years old, before I had to do the show a certain way, and that was really fun, and quite liberating.”

There were similarities to Carrie Mathison, the Danish CIA agent she played over eight seasons of Homeland, a role for which she is still best known. “She was definitely a dangerous person who didn’t have much to lose, and she was very isolated and very flamboyant. Carrie might have used her feminine wiles a little more.” She laughs and adds, “But she was still wearing pants.”

Can she imagine home now, in the current political climate where TV networks are feeling the heat in Trump’s America and politics are moving faster than ever? “I hope so,” say the Danes. “I don’t know if there’s been another show so committed to reflecting the political moment as it was happening as Homeland, and that was really exciting.” She remembers spending a week with intelligence experts, “what I started to call spy camp,” before the writers went to write each new season. “We were getting expectations. It was a great privilege, and sometimes a little TMI. I miss that. There was something wonderful about being able to metabolize what was happening, politically, and reflect on it and comment on it in this work of fiction. I don’t have that medium of expression anymore.”

She doesn’t think it would be impossible to create a show in the style of Homeland today. “That’s a funny metaphor that comes to mind, but if you’re going to wear a ball gown, wear a silly dress. I think it’s kind of like that. If you decide to make a show like this, you’ll make a show like this. I don’t know that Homeland was made because the climate allowed for it. I think this show was made because Howard [Gordon] And Alex [Gansa] He wanted to do it.” Of her own feelings about the state of politics in the United States, she says carefully: “It’s scary. It’s a very volatile feeling, and I’m really sad about how afraid we are of each other now. I’m sad about that, a lot of us don’t trust each other.

It was Danes, a producer on The Beast in Me, who brought in Homeland producer Gordon to produce, after being on hiatus for a few years (the script was sent to her during the pandemic by Jodie Foster, who at one point was set to direct). “It’s really the first time I’ve produced a project from scratch, which was great, I loved it,” she says, adding with a laugh: “That’s the nice thing about being older. I’ve made friends along the way, and I can turn to them to make something with me.”

Danes clearly isn’t that old – she’s 46 – but she’s been working for decades. She grew up in Manhattan, with artistic parents, and discovered a love of acting and performing as a child. The family moved to California when Danes landed the lead role of Angela Chase in the teen drama My So-Called Life. Danes was 14, and the boy she was supposed to have a crush on was played by Jared Leto, who was 21, an age gap these days considered highly inappropriate. Did you feel embarrassed at the time?

“A little, but it was okay,” she says. Everything was awkward then. “I had barely kissed a boy and was dealing with an Adonis, and I didn’t even know how to interpret stage directions. That being said, I was supposed to kiss his face, and I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know there was any other terrain one could explore.” “It was surreal to be navigating these topics in real time,” she says. “After two months, what I was exploring as Angela suddenly became personally relevant to me.” She points out that adolescence “is like Kafka. It’s a really wild ride, and here I have a parallel character as a fictional character.”

She says she has never felt exploited or harmed. The people who created the show, including writer Winnie Holzman, “were well-intentioned, benevolent adults, so it was a very strong, sane environment. That was luck. But not all environments are like that.” But would you say it’s a good thing that we probably wouldn’t choose a 21-year-old man over a 14-year-old love interest now? “I really don’t know. Maybe, right? I honestly don’t know where my moral position is on that. Maybe because it was just my experience, and I felt safe.” Working with intimacy coordinators now as standard is great, she adds. “How could we not have that before? I’m all for it. But it’s funny that I’m working with an intimacy coordinator for the first time at 45 years old.” She smiles. “Like, it’s a little too late.”

The Danes seem to have survived for decades in this industry, and seem relatively unscathed. “I think it was good to spend some time abroad and go to college,” she says. At the height of her film fame, after co-starring with Leonardo DiCaprio in the 1996 film Romeo and Juliet (she was 17 during filming, he was 21), she spent two years at Yale University studying psychology.

“My parents were always there when I was on set as a kid, making sure I was protected and my needs were met, I had a good teacher, I got enough rest, that kind of thing,” she says. Others searched for her. Jodie Foster directed her as a teenager in the 1995 family comedy-drama Home for the Holidays. What did you learn from the great Foster? “She said a lot of things, but she always urged me to stand up for myself, and also to relax.”

For the most part, Danes really likes to work – everything else that comes with being a successful actor – the attention and the awards – is, she says, “just kind of hype” even if what she describes as the “ripples of success” are what lead to more work. “I hope people connect with what I’m trying to make, and I also hope I get another chance to make something else.” She laughs. “Like that’s it.”

The Beast in Me is on Netflix starting November 13.