Facts about Claire Danes

"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"

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

"My character was kidnapped by the Terminator and I was kidnapped by the Terminator production"

"I really liked Yale, although it was extremely intimidating. When I visited the campus, I was hiding behind trees, I felt so unworthy"

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

"I hadn't been free from adult responsibilities since I was 12, and I needed to experience that. I really needed to just be a kid again"

"Maybe philosophy - I love talking about ideas. Or maybe art history. I was thinking about psychology, then I got really afraid because everybody says it's terribly boring"

"I think because I am as earnest as I am, people were accepting of my evolving into a certified, legitimate, and grown up and I did take three years off"

"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"

"I get a little jealous of these actor boys. They walk into a club, and in two seconds flat there are swarms of girls who are wanting so badly to touch them or just say hello. That's not the case with me, or any other girl I know"

"I took three years off. I differentiated myself from the industry. Found my identity - sort of... I haven't graduated yet. I'm not legitimately educated yet, but maybe one day"

"But I don't know if people are meant to be together. You have to have a lot in common, choose well and be really fortunate. It's not like you're sprinkled with fairy dust. You have to believe that love will be there when you need it"

"Acting is the greatest answer to my loneliness that I have found"

"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'm only realizing now that I was a child actress because I always took myself so seriously"

"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"

"Yeah, there was the Flora Plum thing, where I trained for about a month and I had taken a semester off for that, and two weeks prior to filming, the financing collapsed"

"There's certainly something very uncomfortable about the voyeurism involved in being in the press, being an actor, where people have a seemingly insatiable curiosity about, you"

"However, I'm at a very comfortable place in my career and celebrity, in that I don't have to audition as extensively as I used to for roles but yet I'm not immediately recognizable"

"Fame doesn't end loneliness"

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

"I have this home in New York, I have a long-term relationship with my boyfriend, who's from Australia, and I had this business that I had maintain. Even though I wasn't actively shooting, there's a lot of peripheral work"

"I finally realized that yeah I did want to be an actor and it wasn't out of habit, but I needed to grow up for myself and then kind of re-enter the industry with a sound understanding of what my sensibilities and my values are as a relatively formed human being"

"I became very successful at a young age... I had lots of opportunities and lots of power and had no idea how to focus it"

"Growing up, I wanted desperately to please, to be a good girl"