Claire Danes

What I needed was a connection to life that was real and lasting.

When I was 18 I went to college for two years and didn't work for a year which was essential for me, because my identity had been so influenced by my being an actor and I think I just needed to discover what it was to be myself, divorced from all that responsibility.

You know, let a few years go by until I hit my midlife crisis. Then that can be documented on film.

You don't realize how useful a therapist is until you see yourself on e and discover you have more problems than you ever dreamed of.

I have a huge, active imagination, and I think I'm really scared of being alone; because if I'm left to my own devices, I'll just turn into a madwoman.

When somebody asks me who I'm wearing, I always see myself with a BabyBjoern, carrying a little tiny Karl Lagerfeld, like, 'I'm wearing Chanel.'

It's a very young mistake to assume that life is very serious. I get the joke now.

I have this book club, and we don't read one book; we offer up a few suggestions and create a library over time.

Working gives you this new perspective. You don't take everything too seriously, and you realise that if you don't do too well on a history test, it's not the end of the world.

I would sign on for projects that were meant to shoot in July, and then they would postponed and they would bleed into the following semester, and then I'd take a semester off, and then the movie would collapse.

Any story is better with a little love in it, right?

Every time I make a movie, I'm prepared for it to become influential and career-defining - but I have no control over these things.

I know, it's true. I've played these tortured teenagers. I can't wait to shed that image.

On a film you can really get away with learning the scene the night before and that's often just not possible with TV, so you have to be a little bit more prepared a little bit more in advance.

It just seems like the most successful, iconic love stories are not so easy or escapist. I think the ones that stay with us and resonate are full of conflict, discord and misunderstandings 'cause that's what makes drama happen or tension even if it's a comedy.

Every three seconds in the developing world, a child dies needlessly due to lack of basic health care and other things we all take for granted.

I can get a dance party started pretty much anywhere and anytime.

You have to pick your battles on set.

I think people who make movies and have invested a lot of money in them get frightened that if they challenge an audience they are going to repel them. And I think the opposite; it's really true.

I think I would make a lousy stay-at-home mom. It just wouldn't suit me.