LIKE A DIAMOND IN THE SKY
Talking with stellar Stardust star Claire Danes
Interview by Robert Newton

At 28, Claire Danes would seem far too young to have two dozen films in her filmography already, but it is true, statistical tables be damned. From her debut as Beth March in Gillian Armstrong’s 1994 adaptation of Little Women to her dreamy turn as the fair Capulet in Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 Romeo + Juliet to recent stalwart leading roles in films like Lajos Koltai’s Evening, the blonde beauty makes memorable most any part she plays. In the adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s dark bedtime story, Stardust, in theatres Friday, the New York City native lights up the screen in every way…playing an actual fallen star, and opposite heavies like Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Even though Danes has been in a number of sci-fi and fantasy films lately, like It’s All About Love, Princess Mononoke and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, she says she does not have a special interest in the genre.

“I don’t know many people who make a habit of making fantasy movies,” she notes. “It would be pretty limiting if that was your only strength.”

Despite the many fantasy elements that Stardust boasts, like flying ships, magical spells and wicked witches, Danes’s role did not require cruel stints in the make-up chair or talking to a tennis ball on the end of a stick and pretending it is a creature to be animated later.

“Stardust was surprisingly realistic for me, in that I didn’t have to incorporate many fantasy elements into the character,” she says. “I did have to learn how to speak like and English person and capture that sense of humor.”

Danes add that she was not unfamiliar with English writer Neil Gaiman’s work, as she had provided the voice for the character of San in the English translation of Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke that the MirrorMask scribe penned.

“I love the writing,” she beams, then noting how it easily passed her personal test of making her want to read past the 15th page. “The story is charming, witty, wry and crackling. My character Yvaine changes, which is always appealing. I liked her — she is knowing, wise and ancient, but at the same time, naïve. It’s a nice paradox.”

Though Danes got to spend the shoot in the UK at Pinewood Studios outside London, and on location in Scotland, Wales and the English countryside, it wasn’t the scenery that impressed her the most.

“I love [co-star] Charlie [Cox], and working with him was the most rewarding part,” she recalls. “He’s a very special guy. I was not familiar with his acting before this, and I was so impressed with his talent. He’s so appealing and expressive and honest — he’s just a really great person.”

Yvaine ends up playing muse to Cox’s character, a poor farm boy hoping to win the heart of the girl he thinks is his true love, but in stories like this, there is always a rub, and the one in Stardust is a sweet one, made all that more believable by Danes’s real-life affection for Cox.

At any given time, there are a handful of “types” in Hollywood that casting agents look for. Fortunately for Danes, there is a “Claire Danes type,” and it has kept her working for the last dozen years.

“Roles usually seek me out,” she says. “Acting is usually pretty passive in that respect.”

She auditioned for the role in Stardust, though, as she did for another high-profile role — that of Rose in James Cameron’s titanic Titanic.

“I don’t regret turning it down,” she says confidently, noting how she had just wrapped another epic romance with Leonardo DiCaprio — Romeo + Juliet.

A role that she did not turn down was that of Eliza Doolittle in the Broadway revival of Pygmalion.

“It’s exciting and very daunting,” she says of the show, which starts in September and opens officially in October at the American Airlines Theatre, “because I’ve never acted on stage before, though I have danced. I was in a play in my freshman year in high school — I played an old lady — but I don’t think that counts.”

While it is not likely that Danes will give up her film work any time soon, she is focusing on the very different business of live theatre with the same dedication.

“It’s been a fantasy of mine to perform on stage for a while now,” she says. “I’m kind of scared with it looming. I think that it’ll be really interesting at the very least. I might dread it, I might love it, who knows?”•••