WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 520 - Claire Danes

Episode Date: August 3, 2014

Claire Danes always had a Plan B. In fact, throughout her life, Claire could have taken several alternate career paths. But whether it was because of My So-Called Life or Temple Grandin or Homeland or something else, Claire kept coming back to acting. She tells Marc what it was like to find success at such a young age, why she briefly left it all behind, and what happened when she finally got to work with her hero. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Lock the gates! Get almost almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Lock the gates! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucking ears? What the fuck nicks? What the fuck sticks? What the fuck stirs? What the fuck nicks what the fuck sticks what the fuck stirs what the fuck adelphians that just came in i'm mark maron this is wtf welcome welcome to the show how are you we have three shows this week we're gonna have three shows this week we're packing them in today claire danes is in the garage claire danes is a fan of the show wanted to do the show had no idea came out of nowhere and i'm thinking claire danes hell yes i want to talk to claire danes she seems to hold a fairly prominent position in my unconscious and conscious somewhere along the line i i remember when claire danes was everywhere and i'm like who

is that woman that claire danes person she seems intense and then you'd see her in movies you're like holy shit she's a great actress then all of a sudden she went back to college. And I'm like, what is that about? That seems like a good idea. I was thrilled that she wanted to do the show. So she's here. And by the way, thank you for watching my season two of Marin. I appreciate it. I'm glad you liked it. I was very happy with the finale.

I don't want to spoil it for anybody if you haven't seen it. It's got Eddie Pepitone and Dave Anthony and Andy Kindler. And I don't want to tell you, Ted Lang is in it. Peter Berman, the comic. It's interesting, the story about Peter Berman. Peter Berman is a comedian. He owns a pet store right up the street from me. I was told by another comic, and I support his business. It's called Rock, Dog, and Cat Dog and Cats right up there on Colorado. So that backstory is relatively true. He's a very sweet guy. I don't think he's as bitter as the character he played, but it's sort of funny how art imitates life if you're going to call my show art. But I wanted to make sure that you knew that we shot in his pet store. That's interesting backstory. There are more backstories. Perhaps I'll do more of those. And we're still waiting

on a pickup. So I'll let you know when that happens. I was away for four days. I spent some time in San Francisco doing fun things. I did an experiment in having a good time and enjoying myself. I spent some time with a person who lives in another state. And we got together. And we hung out for like four or five days. And we had a great we saw movies we ate good food we did tourist things we did all the things you do in san francisco and had a lovely time and now the vacation is over and i'm full of heartache

and and anxiety i just tend to make life more difficult for myself and i don't think i have a great way of looking at everything and i think at some point i got to take action because i'm getting tired of myself well i've been reading this book it's a great companion i might add to another book that god knows some of you've heard me talk about um ad infinitum the denial of death by ernest becker and then my um my psychologist who i see erratically started dropping this uh the title of this book the fantasy bond structure of psychological defenses what it's about i used to do this line saying that you know that anyone's personality is just a very elaborate defense mechanism uh it's just a reaction to the first no or the first detachment and i'm i'm happy to

find that as i read this book by this robert w firestone which was written in uh 1987 is that i'm not that far off i know some of you tough love motherfuckers are like you know shut up quit whining pull yourself up by your bootstraps but some of us are more pensive some of us are more thoughtful some of us are more compulsive about the inner work the fact that i don't have a significant other in my life or dependence or anything else you know my problems are my children and there's some part of me that wants to understand deeply or at least get some context for the emotional experience i'm having as a grown-ass man who is relatively incapacitated emotionally clearly and the fantasy bond is about if you have emotionally detached parents or emotionally needy parents or parents that were incapable of

providing you the space to sort of develop your into your own person with the support that's required of parents what you do is you sublimate that or shove that shit down and then create this fantasy idea of how good your parents are. So that's the fantasy bond is that the emotional content of what parents are supposed to be may be absent. But because they're your parents and because of all the input you're getting from the world, you know, you got to love your parents and they're good parents. So all that stuff, all that doubt and all their neediness and all their sort of emotional drainage and molestation, emotional molestation, boundarylessness is just sublimated. And that becomes your inner life.

That becomes your emotional life that is unruly and certainly self-flagellating, selfcritical insecure not complete but on the outside you're holding on to this idea that these people are you know your parents and that goes on for a while but his whole i think his angle is is that you bring this fantasy bond into the rest of your life for the rest of your life if you're emotionally structured that way and obviously everybody has a an idealism that goes into relationship but but it really goes into this whole idea of a you know what is what is the difference between love and need and these are ideas i've had in my fucking stand-up for 20 years and being the self-centered person i am to a certain degree i'm flattered that i was thinking along the lines that you know this guy thought were relatively important enough to

build a whole book around it's shedding some light but the one thing that saddens me is that i read this stuff and it's sort of like hey yeah this is it this is it i got it now what the one thing i can say about the tough love crowd the think positive crowd the pull yourself up by your bootstraps crowd is that uh yeah that might be at the end of the day the only real option you have in some form or another you know the the idea that you're going to get back down to the core of it all and rewire it you know after 50 years or 40 years or 20 years even of life is is probably a long shot so you have to act against your instincts and, you know, kind of hyper assess, you know, every sort of interaction that seems volatile or destructive or disingenuous and live your life like that. Hypervigilant.

I'm not saying frightened, but hypervigilant. And that's exhausting. I went into City Lights bookstore. And as some of you know, I did my time at the front of political talk for the lefties back in the day when the Bush regime was in place. And my brain was in that. That was a good way to sort of, you know, kind of funnel my anger, you know, to redirect it from me onto the world. So I bought a book. I'm going through City Lights. And this always happens at City Lights. there's a sort of importance to it city lights is where

alan ginsburg first read out loud how sitting there in the early 60s changing the world creating a poetry that had never been heard the beatniks came through their ferlinghetti owned it it's got a history to it it's weighty it's amazing it's a place you're supposed to go in and go it's all here man it all happened here it's a place where i go in and i look at the books that they're publishing and there's always a book there that's sort of like yeah i got to get back on track i got to reconnect with the with the real issues of the world so i see this book just sitting there just the right size it's called the violence of organized forgetting and the subtitle is thinking beyond america's disimagination

machine and i'm like holy fuck those are some words that you don't usually see together and the poetry of it is resonating with me it's got to be a portal into all the issues it's got to be a portal into a frame of mind that dissects and understands the culture we're living in as it spirals down the drain because of classism and complete narcissistic modes of existence so i'm like holy shit man i'm gonna get this book i'm gonna read it i'm gonna rejigger my brain and understand it all. Yeah, so I'm doing that. And, you know, I don't know.

I'm a relatively civic-minded person, but I don't know if I can go to the front lines to guarantee that democracy stays alive and functions for everyone. I have a certain amount of faith, but I think that faith may be a tremendous rationalization. Not unlike a lot of faith, probably. We got to talk about the patent troll situation for a minute. There's some news. There's some news about the patent troll, and it affects all of us.

If you've been listening to the show for a little while, you know, the threat we've been under from the patent troll. All right. Not just WTF, but all podcasters. A lot of us got these shakedown letters that said, acclaimed, we were infringing on a license. They said that we owed them a fee. They would not be clear on what the fee was. I would not engage with them because I thought there was a problem. If you're not going to tell us what the fee is and you're not a legit upfront business, if you're just looking to extort money. So they terrorized a lot of podcasters and they actually sued the How It Works podcast and Adam Carolla. Now, as part of an effort to beat this troll and protect what we do for a

living, Adam Carolla came on this show and we asked you to donate to his legal defense fund. And he did. And his listeners did. And listeners of other shows did to the tune of more than 450 000 because just as a little guy which adam is despite what anyone may think you know in terms of the business world in terms of podcasting adam's in the fight he's he's been sued and he's fighting and apparently that scared the troll shitless and now they're panicking and a panicking troll can be dangerous as well okay so hear me out and maybe we can beat this thing once and for all last week you may have seen some news articles about the troll personal audio that's because the troll suddenly sent out a press release out of nowhere now as with most things having to do

with this troll a lot of what they're saying is total bullshit, but let me read you some of what they said. And I'm quoting here from their press release. Quote, personal audio, the pioneers in personalized media solutions this month offered to dismiss Adam Carolla from its highly publicized patent infringement lawsuit. Unquote. Now, hold on right there.

What it doesn't say is that they want to have the lawsuit dismissed without prejudice, without prejudice. That just means that they stop what they're doing right now. But they can refile the lawsuit at any time in the future. They're not actually dropping the lawsuit. That's bullshit. And why are they not dropping the suit entirely?

Okay, let's read on. Quote, when Personal Audio first began its litigation, it was under the impression that Corolla, as well as certain other podcasters, were making significant money from infringing personal audios patents after the party's completed discovery however it became clear this was not the case unquote okay so in other words they tried to shake us all down and we all called their bluff and now that they realize they're not going to get any money out of any of us and that we're going to fight back they're acting like it was all a big misunderstanding but and here's the important part the but they're still not dropping the suit why if they say podcasters aren't worth it why don't they

just drop the suit entirely simple they're giving themselves the option to refile it again at any time all right now here's this is now look at how they frame corolla all right now now they go on to complain about the money that was raised for the legal defense fund quote adam corolla is asking people to donate money to him for a lawsuit that he no longer needs to defend getting his fan base to continue to donate to his legal fund is a cynical exploitation of the publicity power he enjoys as an entertainer unquote so if that's how they feel then just drop the whole fucking lawsuit if they're so concerned about the fundraising why not just drop the lawsuit entirely then all the fundraising will stop because they don't want to

drop the suit they want to be able to bring it back at a later date unless the suit is completely dropped they will always have the option of coming back and doing this all over again. Whenever they want, hey, maybe podcasters are doing better. Let's try and shake those little fuckers down for some money. Here's my point, folks. These guys are clearly on the ropes and they're on the ropes because podcasters and podcast listeners stood up for themselves and refused to be bullied.

I know that I wasn't going to let these guys shake me down. There was no fucking way. We need to make this so difficult for them that they have no choice but to drop the case entirely. Now listen, we've already asked for a lot from you. You've written letters, you've signed petitions, and you've donated your hard-earned money, so we're not going to ask you to do any of that again.

What we will ask you to do is shop. Whenever you need to shop online, use the Shop on Amazon banner that's on the homepage of WTFpod.com. There's a banner on Adam's site as well. In fact, go click the banner now and just bookmark the link. Anytime you shop on Amazon using that link, a portion of your purchase will go toward the defense fund, which means we keep showing the troll that will fight this thing until they go away for good. It doesn't cost you any extra money. It's just regular Amazon shopping. It's an easy way to keep this thing going strong. These guys are gangsters. This is their business. Shaking down

the little guy. It is not right. It's not morally right. It's not judicially right. It is not right. It's not morally right. It's not judicially right. It's not right. They're working a loophole and this is their business and they fucked with the wrong little guys. They want to go fuck with other people

because now they're turning their focus onto TV networks. They're just hoping for a payout. Let's just pay these guys out so they don't bother us and that's how these guys stay in business. Fuck them. So I'm just trying to

encourage you to keep aware of this that this is ongoing. I know a lot of it's gone off the front burner. A lot of podcasters are like, oh, is that still a thing? Yeah, it's still a fucking thing. And in the future, it could be a worse thing until we shut this fucker down. So help out if you can. I appreciate it.

All right, so there you go. I did it. I talked about something that matters. Now let's talk to Claire Dan. It's winter and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls?

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And they're helping put Calgary and our innovation ecosystem on the map as a place where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look at CalgaryEconomicDevelopment.com. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Claire Danes is in my garage. Yeah.

I can't believe it. I'm a little beside myself here. I'm so giddy. Are you? I am giddy. You are? I really am. I am, too, a little bit.

We're going to have to work through it together. Okay. Why am I giddy? I don't know. It's a little bit. We're going to have to work through it together. Okay. Why am I giddy? I don't know. It's a contact high. It is. Yeah. Like, because you're one of those people.

I don't know. Some people I'm like, I feel familiarity. Yeah. I feel like I. Well, same here. But in my imagination, because I hear you. You know me though. If you listen.

Yeah. I know you. I mean, in a way. And when. Yeah. I don't. I don't. Well, I don't have well i don't have i

don't know you i know this stuff you do it's all amazing i was watching like i it was pretty amazing well thank you i mean i i've been watching uh i've been watching homeland i got into it okay because i don't watch anything but then like yeah i heard that you wanted to come on the show and i'm like well i know this is an amazing show, so now I've got to watch all of it. Yeah. So I've watched it. So I'm very familiar now with how insane you can be. Yes. As a character.

As a character. Yes. Is it not in real life? I wouldn't characterize myself as insane. No, but I mean that. Oh, you mean the character or you? Well, the character is, yes, formally, clinically bananas. But no, I think I myself have worked very hard to achieve some kind of balance and structure and order. But it did require work?

Yeah, yeah, a lot of work. But the work that I most enjoy doing, for a long time I thought I was going to be like a therapist. So this is ideal because I get to merge my two passions. Being an actress is ideal? Yeah. I mean, I always wanted to be an actress for reasons that were totally inexplicable. Because you're a kid. But totally true. Well, but not every kid wants to be an actor.

But then somebody told me when I was around, I don't know, nine? Nine. That most actors don't typically make that much money. So I re-evaluated and I was going to be- At nine. At nine. And I was going to be a therapist and do acting workshops on the side. I was going to live next door to my best friend.

Yeah. And we were going to have one pool with two slides in our respective yards that would go into, you know. Yeah. And I had it all worked out. At nine. Yeah. And this was the plan for a solid year. And then one day I actually made a formal announcement at the dinner table and

i said you know to my parents and brother yeah money or no money i was gonna i was gonna have to be true to my art and i was going to be true to your art an actor um and uh yeah and then kind of uh was but but but so this was always plan b was being a therapist but it just so happened that i now have a career in um uh in exploring what it is to be crazy within the context of acting right a a supportive context yeah a low uh a low risk a very very low risk context but you're very good at it thank you yeah it's very compelling yes and turns out that my best friend the same one who i was going to live next door to yeah is in fact a therapist no yeah was that even her plan no she stole your idea she's so yeah

she's a she's a thief and now are you still friends yeah besties really from age nine from age nine all right let's go let's go back. Because I had a question. I remember when you sort of went to college. I remember culturally. I sort of went to college. It's true. Well, I remember culturally, there was like, Claire Danes is going to college. Right.

And I was very impressed with that. I'm like, good for her. Thanks. Who knows if this acting thing is going to pan out. Yeah. But before that, where do you come from? Do you come from a perfect land? Obviously.

No, I do not come from a perfect land. I come from Crosby Street. I grew up in- Oh, right in Manhattan? In Soho, yeah. Really? Yeah. My parents were artists and-

Both of them? Mm-hmm. Wow. You and Lena Dunham. Yeah. Well, we grew up in the same neighborhood, but I'm a little older. But you're not old at all. I'm pretty old.

I'm 35. 35 is nothing. Well, I mean- Have you looked at your resume? You're 35. I'm 35. I feel like I've been seeing you for my entire life. Well, yeah.

I mean, I've been doing it since I was 12. Was it 12? 12 was when I got 12 so was it 12 12 was when I got an agent was 12 this so-called life 13 I did the pilot of my so-called life and then it didn't get picked up and and then it did a half a year later so what kind of artists they met at Rhode Island School of design my my mom were they groovy yeah cutting edge they're great they're they're totally idiosyncratic people um but my mom was a textile designer for 10 years my dad was a photographer and then um uh they had two kids and decided to, you know. No more art? Well, their trajectory is interesting.

So my mom ran a toddler school in our loft. Six kids in the morning, one and two-year-olds, and one and two-year-olds in the afternoon. She just figured she had kids. Why not bring some more kids in? No, she was always interested in art and early childhood development and education. And she was an art teacher for a while out of school. And so she always had that interest. And she was the eldest of five kids.

And so when she was five, her mom, my grandmother, then had four other kids in very quick succession, like a year apart. So she kind of became her assistant by default. Five kids? Yeah. Is it a Catholic thing or just a thing? No, it wasn't a Catholic thing. Just wanted to have them?

They're Protestant. Yeah, they were just into it. So you have like all these aunts and uncles. Two aunts from that side and yes, and two uncles. That's a lot. A lot of cousins. Yeah. I mean, you'd think I'd have more, but...

Maybe the experience of being one of five was enough to curtail some of their desires to have children. Maybe. Well, anyway, my mom did that. Actually, Lena, I'm friends with Lena. Lena, when I'm friends with Lena, when I first met her some time ago, she said that her mom was to, her mom wanted my mom to know that she was still upset that Lena had not been accepted into the school because she had. Oh, my God. Yeah. Is that true?

It's true. There wasn't room. But it was not personal. And, you know. It was just a space thing? It was a space thing. It was not some sort of weird envy, sort of like they're still artists. We gave it up. Oh, gosh.

I don't think so, no. We're familiar with those Dunhams. I don't think so. Yeah, they think they're the best artists on the block. Yeah, yeah. So you didn't grow up around the school thing. That was not happening. No, well, I was four.

I was too old at that point. No, I don't think I would have gone anyway. Conflict of interest. But I grew up kind of looking after these kids myself because they were in my space. And they were there before I left for school and were there well after I got back. Well, that's what I mean. You were in the house. So I know a lot of nursery rhymes.

Yeah, a lot. And your dad was a photographer and he just stopped doing that? Well, then he was a contractor for the majority of my years, my time with him. You know, when I was a kid, he did that for 20 years. Like a building contractor? He built buildings, residential buildings for the most part. It was called overall construction. He likes the puns. And then I started acting and it just that it collected momentum.

And then it was like a career with, you know, suddenly. And when my so-called life got picked up, we were all shipped out to L.A. My brother was in college at this point. He was at Oberlin. So so we moved to L.A. and we were all so kind of deracinated. Everybody moved? Well, everybody. My parents and I moved. For your career?

For the show. Yeah. And we moved out, I think, two days after that massive earthquake. Was it of 94? Yeah, 94, 95. I remember that. So we experienced all of those aftershocks but it was very strange yeah because everybody was uh just so spooked and so unnerved and you know and we

couldn't really identify but we were experiencing these aftershocks which were kind of strange kind of just felt like the subway subway was rumbling below us. It's exciting. It was exciting, but it was also too accurate a metaphor for what we were experiencing, you know, just personally as our family. A big shift. But my parents moved out here, kind of didn't know what to do with themselves. It was, my mom was ready to end her school and my dad's business actually had gone bankrupt like that year. so it was just this really natural so they were like thank god the kid's pulling some money in no no no but it was

it was a time of transition very coincidentally right and um um but they my mom ultimately went back to grad school here in la she went to a place called Otis and my dad started taking photographs, um, uh, more consistently. And now they live in Santa Monica and they have two studios in the backyard and they make their art. Really? Yeah.

And they have, they show together and it's like this wonderful, kind of adorable, but that sounds patronizing. I don't mean it. It's great. Did they give up the place in New York? They actually own the loft building with another couple.

They bought it in the early 70s for like $2. So now it's like worth millions of dollars? Yeah. It's their very, it's their, you know, retirement plan. It's great. Who lives there? They rent it out? They rent it out.

Yeah. All right. So you're 12. I'm 12. Like how did my so-called life well i started i danced as a kid um do you still dance i i kind of i haven't done it for a while i i i danced as a very very little kid i took one class with this woman called ellen robbins who was great yeah and um uh choreographers from these kind of black box theaters

in the Lower East Side would come to her class looking for young talent. You know, occasionally they would need a kid in... For their weird shows? For their weird shows. And I was always like the hammiest and often the most kind of conspicuous and me, me, me. And so I got picked a lot.

And so I had some experience, you know, in the theater. What kind of weird shows? Oh, my God. Like, were you a punchline? Like, here's the kid? Oh, I actually, I looked at a video of one of these things that I did when I was maybe seven. Yeah. And I never knew what the plot was because I don't think there often was one.

Yeah, they don't know. They didn't know. But no, I mean, I looked at it again. I don't know how, I mean, as a grown up, I guess. And I realized that there was this whole like incest theme. And, you know, but it was completely lost on me. They were banking on that yeah

so there was a couple and then the guy the father the guy is like writhing on me and I was like oh that's what that was

I had no clue but and there'd be like maybe 15 people in an audience on a good night it's a sexual abuse dance yeah but no

my first my first performance was I don't know maybe I was six at this place called PS122. And I was a duck. I've been there. And I quacked. And there were people in stilts walking around me, a bearded lady.

You know, it was that kind of thing. Bearded lady stilts and you were a duck. Yeah. But I actually, I danced again when I was like 24, maybe. Because my best friend, who is now a therapist, her mom is a choreographer. She's actually the reason I started acting, really. Her mom? Yeah, kind of.

Her mom is a choreographer. And Ariel, my bestie, had done a student film. I don't know how that happened. But that same director was looking for another kid for his next student film. I don't know how that happened. But that same director was looking for another kid for his next student film, which was kind of like an elevated student film because he was under the tutelage of Milos Forman. And so his best students were then doing this.

Milos Forman was running a school of some kind? Yeah, I guess maybe it was part of It was part of a college, maybe? Part of Columbia University. So maybe he was affiliated with Columbia University. But I remember my first audition was with Milos Forman for this dinky little student film that I got from my best friend's mom. And yeah.

What was that role? I played an abused girl. Yeah, also an incest theme. So that was my milieu back then. I played an abused girl. Yeah. Also an incest theme. So that was my milieu back then. So do you remember how they asked you to play something like that? I mean, you were, what, 12, 11? I was 11.

I was 11. Because you must have exuded the same type of emotional rawness that you seem to be very good at at that age. And they were like, that kid looks like she's in trouble. Yeah. I guess my parents were concerned um they were yeah and they asked me you know if i was up for it up to you know i was capable of taking that on you've been through a lot do you well yeah i mean it was and i and i said know, I guess my answer was like, well, I know what's my imagination and what isn't. And I know the difference between the real and the unreal. Did they ask you, like, are you comfortable? Yeah, I think they did.

I think it was. And I was. I was so, I loved the experience so much. And you were like, there's no nudity. I think it's okay. Yeah, there was no nudity. That's true. Of course not.

But years, years later in my 20s, Ariel was still, she was dancing and studying to be a therapist. And ultimately she had to choose one or the other. But she was still dancing at this point. And I saw her perform and something. And I just was so kind of envious, you know, filled with this desire to do that myself. And she admitted that, you know, she happened to mention that to her mom, Tamar. And so Tamar then called me and suggested that we start kind of working together dancing just for fun for the sake of it. developed into a solo, an hour-long solo show, which I then performed at PS122, which was really, really great, actually, to return to the... Yeah, the duck.

The duck. The duck debacle. Yes, to return to the duck. To where that happened. Mm-hmm. That was a great space, though, PS122. It is, yeah. I don't talk to that many people who grow up in Manhattan.

It's such a rare thing, and it's such an amazingly unique childhood like you don't you don't do like the rules are completely different it seems I guess so I mean you we were deaf I mean when I was a kid you had to legally prove that you were an artist who live in Soho it was it was law yeah I kind of like that and I'm people lied but that yeah well what was going on in the house like because I know I talked to Lane about it and then that's in recent memory but I don't like that. And people lied, but yeah. Well, what was going on in the house? Because I know I talked to Elaine about it, and that's in recent memory, but I don't know that many people that grew up in New York. Yeah.

And this is like, what, the 70s? Yeah, well, in the 80s. I grew up in 70. I was born in 79. Well, were your parents open-minded people? Yes. And so you kind of had that whole world available to you. Yeah.

you kind of had that whole world available to you. Yeah. Did they, were they, did they, were they sort of, I imagine they were encouraging, but. Yeah, but nobody in my family had any interest in the performing arts. I mean, that was completely, nobody was prepared for that. What's your brother do? My brother's a lawyer.

Huh. Yeah, he's six and a half years older. He's in New York. He just got married about a month ago. He's a regular lawyer. He's a, yep. Got a life. He's a lawyer. Huh. Yeah, he's six and a half years older. He's in New York. He just got married about a month ago. He's a regular lawyer. He's a, yep. Got a life. He's in litigation, yeah.

Wow. Yeah. All right, so you do the thing. You do the abused 11-year-old. I do the abused thing. I had taken classes. I took my, the first thing I did was take classes when I was 10. With who?

At Lee Strasburg. You went to Strasburg? I went to Strasburg. They had a kids' zone? Yeah, but most of the kids there, it was like either that or tennis on a Saturday. So it wasn't like you weren't sitting around doing Meisner with other 10-year-olds?

Well, we were, but I was taking it so seriously, very earnestly trying to feel that wind. You were? Nobody else was. Is there a video of that? Oh, God. I never did feel it, though, but it was very serious oh my god that must have been hilarious oh my god was i serious so i took i took classes at least

trossberg was he there no uh no he's not no no no no um he wasn't teaching the the 10 year olds anyway um and then i went to a junior high school for it was called Professional Performing Arts School. The Fame School? Well, it was a derivative of it was actually I went in its first year of existence and and had a great time. And actually there I met other kids who were professional actors and I kind of figured out what an agent was. who were professional actors and I kind of figured out what an agent was. Well, Alicia Keys went to my school.

Who else went to my school? Gabby Hoffman, who's still a best friend of mine, went there. Oh, really? Yeah, a lot of people did. But there was also PCS. That was private.

My school was public. Right. But that was great because, again, I got to kind of figure out what how one went about getting a real career like what I had to get a headshot and you what at 13 yeah this no I was 11 I was 11 and then that and you're learning that I was learning that and I was too I did like a cluster of student films yeah and um my dad had been a photographer so in our loft we had a dark room that he rented out so a woman who was using it then took my headshots and we sent them out to

agents you know um and uh somebody actually called back and then i had this footage i had this these movies this movie in particular to the one where you were the abused kid i was the abused kid it was called dreams of love do you still have a copy of it i do and uh how do you how do you how's it like what's it like looking at that now well i mean it is a student film in every way and but there's something kind of i mean can you see i have improved since then but can you see yourself in it oh yeah isn't it weird to watch stuff like from that long ago and you're like i'm me i'm still me yeah yeah and then you have a kid you have a kid yes i have a 16 month old really baby a boy a boy what's that what i don't have one of those it's pretty intense yeah yeah it's great is it great it's so great it's i mean people assail you with advice when you know when you're pregnant and like what oh god i mean i don't eat this don't eat that yeah yeah and there's no there's

some of it's helpful some of it is the opposite of that um but somebody said you know it's harder and then you can be prepared for and more beautiful than you can be prepared for it's it's and that's turning out to be true for you yeah yeah it's just very it's very uh involving uh-huh it's very consuming and so it does reorient you. Where's the kid now? He's at the Sunset Towers. Oh, your husband's here? My husband is working. No, he's being babysat right now.

What's your husband do? He's an actor. His name is Hugh Dancy. How come? Why don't I know that? He's an English actor. He's an English actor. He's an Englishman. Now I want to look at him.

What's he been in? Right now he's on a show called Hannibal. He just wrapped the second season. Was he a regular on that? Yeah. He's like the guy who's hunting Hannibal down. So you're married to an actor. I'm married to an actor.

And you're an actor. And I'm an actor. That happened. What is it? We met on a movie called Evening. But I don't know. He's not a very actorly actor. There are some actors who reek of actor-ness.

But is it like we're both doing well right now? Yeah, we're both doing well. And actually, we're so lucky at the moment because we're in a good system. We basically work in tandem. So Homeland films from June to November and his show films from August to April. Did you do that contractually?

Did you demand that? No, I mean, it was mostly serendipity, but we kind of were conscious of how this might be a good thing. Well, there's a big gap we have to fill here. So now you're going to this performing arts high school. Junior high. Junior high.

You've been taught that it's a cutthroat business that you have to be aware of, and you have to have headshots, and you've got to get an agent. Yeah. They're laying this all on you. So it's really a professional school like that. It's not a dream school. It's like we're teaching you guys how to be professional. Yeah.

Really. So you get your headshot, and then you send your little movie out. I send my head shot. I have the movie to show to agents who actually responded. How'd you decide on the agents? Were your parents involved in your career at that point? Yeah, but we were all so naive. Right.

No idea what was coming, what was going to happen. Yeah, we were just figuring it out as we went along. A woman called Karen Friedman from Writers and Artists signed me, and she was great. Yeah. And I started going auditions and, like, working. Yeah. So, of course, you know. What were your first gigs?

My first gig was a pilot called Dudley with Dudley Moore that we shot at Silver Cup Studios in Astoria. Oh, I used to live right by there. And it was like a real sitcom. How was working with Dudley at 12 or 13? Well, I didn't really have a sense of who he was, but he was very charming. Yeah. Probably very drunk.

He wore lifts. He played. He's a little guy. He had a grand piano in his dressing room. It was like exactly how you would imagine Dudley Moore to be. This was like the Arthur character. Yeah. So he was coming off the success of that movie, I imagine.

Yeah. But it was, yeah. This was one I always was very concerned with, like, playing the truth, you know. At 13. Yeah. Always, always, always. Well, who were your heroes heroes what was your precedent for that what was your romantic idea of what acting was merrill oh really yeah i i actually i remember

seeing accidental tourist when i was like i don't know when did that come out i was little that was who was in that july will william hurt and um judy davis yeah yeah yeah and hurt was so fucking intense yeah he was great yeah and it'd be interesting to watch that again i don't really remember anything about the movie but i remember kind of being it was it was a pretty heavy movie i think yeah i mean that really affected me when i was a kid and i saw sophie's choice when i was nine oh my god and. And I just thought, wow, right. Okay, so like they can be this. And I didn't even like cartoons as a little girl.

I remember getting into a fight with one of my- You were intense. I was intense. I just didn't, it didn't appeal to me. I was much more interested in like live action. Yeah. And I remember getting, you know, schooling my friend Aria. Yeah. Who really loved Disney movies.

And I was like, they're based on Grimm's fairy tales and they're totally abstracted, you know. Abstracted. Whitewashed, you know. I mean, I didn't use these words. But it was basically that attitude. They didn't really show the darkness that was in those fairy tales. And I loved Grimm's fairy tales. I mean, I loved Bluebeard.

Shelley Duvall had this fairy tale theater. She hosted this series of fairy tale theater, and they were much kind of darker, racier. So that was always my sensibility. But when I did Dudley, when I was little, I didn't really understand that there were different genres and different styles of acting. Right, sure. So I was giving this incredibly earnest performance. A method performance. Yes.

Yeah. And it was not appropriate. Not appropriate. But. Did anyone guide you? Say like, hey, kid, lighten up. Oh, God. Lighten up a little.

No, they didn't. And I don't. They should have. But I think it never got to that point because it was a non-starter. So. Oh, God. Lighten up a little. No, they didn't. And I don't. They should have. But I think it never got to that point because it was a non-starter. Oh, boy. But that was my first gig. And then I had a guest spot on Law and Order. I played a teenage murderer as people.

I mean, that's like every New Yorker's first job. And then I did a couple of TV movies of the week. Yeah. And then I got. But you were working. I was working consistently. Yeah. And I, and I actually kind of made a chunk of change.

So I sent myself to private school, which I hadn't been, you know, so I went to Dalton, which was, you know, really. For high school? Uh, for high school. And then halfway through my freshman year, after my so-called life had initially not got picked, got picked up. Yeah. It then did get picked up. And so I was.

And that's where you could really like your emotional capacity and your desire to do something heavy was you could do it. You could act the way you wanted to act. I could do it. But also at that point, I had been through junior high school. I had had some difficulty socially. junior high school i had had some difficulty um socially and uh so i was full of full of resentment and um and and rage really what was uh what was difficult for well girls are not fun so what did you 10 to 13 did you kick some ass did you what happened i had had every time i had difficulty there was like one girl who just kept being reincarnated.

And my mom's strategy for like response to my my struggle was to just put me in a new environment. But that was that was counterproductive because I'd be like the new girl. And that rendered me vulnerable by definition. And so the new boys have a crush on the new girl because they're new. And then girls hate the girl that boys have a crush on the new girl because they're new and then girls hate the girl that boys have a crush on. So what was this girl?

This recurring character? Well, I won't name names. Are you still mad? Yeah. You are? And actually, Morena,

who was on Homeland, sadly, not really, I don't think there'll be much opportunity for her to work on this next season because,

spoiler alert, but whatever. She plays Brody's wife in season because, well, spoiler alert, but whatever. She plays Brody's wife. Right. And the first, well, she plays Brody's wife. Yeah. We went to junior high school together. We went to the lab school, totally coincidentally. Really?

Not a performing arts junior high school. And we realized when we met again as grownups that we had both been persecuted by this same girl. And we spent many, many hours just still working it out. Really? Even now? Yeah. But she was a bully or what? she was a bully and what did she do oh she was just generally undermining but you know would like throw shit at you and call your names but the worst thing that that girls do is um galvanize yeah uh everybody in the school to um to hate you that's awful they

recruit and you were the hated one i was a hated one not all the time i had a very erratic career in school sometimes i was doing very well and other times really not so well what do you think made you the hated one why were you prone to that uh because you're wearing your heart on your sleeve hated one why were you prone to that uh because you're wearing your heart on your sleeve yeah a little bit and intense girl yeah like i just really liked learning in school i really did i really did and so my friend ariel whom i've known since i was nine we went to school together we went to junior high to go out there, and she had a whole system. She would only allow herself to answer three questions per class. Socially? No, like, you know, she just never made it obvious.

She never admitted to her engagement or enthusiasm. But I was like, ooh, ooh, ooh, girl. You're the I know girl. Oh, I was so, so involved. I just didn't. It's making me sad. I didn ooh, girl. You're the I know girl. Oh, I was so, so involved. I just didn't... It's making me sad. I didn't like... Just that you're all wide open and like, I want to be right.

Yeah. Yeah. And it was really, really not a good idea to be... I mean, it was really painful to have that experience. And when I was going to that junior high school of performing arts, because we had... You're like bully food. Acting class that they tacked on to the junior high school of performing arts because we had you're like bully food acting class that they attacked on to the end of school you know so it would be two hours standing there doing exercises and just people saying horrible things and you're really working it so you're

like open and want to be emotional yeah it was just it was just it was it was bad so by the time I got to my so-called life, I was ready to let him have it. But have you Facebooked the bully? Have you done any? No. But come on, be honest. No, I haven't. I don't do Facebook. I do Instagram, but I don't do Facebook.

But have you done any research in trying to figure out what happened? Just for the satisfaction. Be honest. You know. I don't know. No, I haven't really. I haven't. So you've let it go.

I don't let it go, I guess. It wasn't even them specifically. It was them for a little while. But no, it was just the general system. The whole social structure i found very frustrating and it was really good for me to go to college finally because i realized that because kids kind of remained at that point developmentally in my imagination because i didn't go through high school where people kind of gradually become where you see everybody so more uh humane whatever But yeah, so by the time, in college, I was like,

oh, people kind of get, they get better. Sometimes, yeah. I mean, I was also at Yale where people were

ooh, ooh, ooh, so I was in the right company. That's what Yale's filled with, like, I know, I know, me.

The ooh, ooh, oohs. The ooh, oohs. Good, is that the first time you've put it that way yeah oh in in england they're called swats oh i don't really know why all right so but all the success so you do uh my so-called life and it's like a cultural phenomenon i was a little old for it but i i definitely remember watching it and seeing it but like my buddy who i work with he's he's like you know that that was like the most important show for any of us so it was huge so now you're but it wasn't it got canceled in its first season

there were only 19 episodes out of 22 um but then it got picked up by mtv and then other uh that's all that was made only 19 only 19 episodes but it was it just kind of had this amazing afterlife yeah so now do you like have you found like i would imagine that it's the type of show where there was gratitude coming at you from teenagers i guess so but i was still in high school you know but even but in such a weird way in la no high schools were really interested in taking kid actors because there are so many of them here and they know how disruptive they are so there was only one school that would um be willing to to take me and my very difficult schedule on um and it was kind of a weird place but i barely went i was kind of tutored from that point on um so you're like uh you're you're freakish in that you don't have this

you you're performing you're acting out this high school experience and you don't have any of it and i don't have any of it no um but i mean i had a semester at dalton yeah and i had you know i could riff yeah did you have a like a social life how did you have a love life in high school when you were this isolated? I didn't. No? I didn't. No. I didn't. I had a boyfriend when I was, I guess, 15 through a friend. I don't know. It was lovely.

Yeah. But, no, that's why it was really good for me to go to college. But what was that decision? I mean, you made some money. You were doing good. You did, before you went to college, you made a movie or two, too, didn't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember being surprised like there was like this moment and I kind of I don't know why I remember it. But in my mind, you had everything going on and everything was going the way it was supposed to go to college. And at that point, too, I'd been working so relentlessly and I was a little maxed out. I was a little. And it was confusing because I had, yeah, a lot of success very quickly, but I kind of didn't know how to harness it or focus it. I didn't know what to do with it. Right.

I didn't have like a little culture. Right. You know, I needed time to create that and i needed the space to create that you know say culture what do you mean like i didn't know i didn't know what movies i wanted to see never mind what movies i wanted to make i didn't know my value system i had no life yeah i had no um aesthetic like i um i i really needed to just take a second to to that out. Yeah. And actually, I deferred a year. I filmed him. And I had a boyfriend at the time who was a musician.

And I went on tour with him. What band? He's called Ben Lee. He's Australian. You toured with a musician boyfriend. Yeah. I did that for a long time. Stayed in a lot of like Motel 6s and 8s and 10s.

Was that a good relationship? Yeah. We were together for seven years. Seven years with a musician. Mm-hmm. All right. So you go aesthetic-less, valueless to Yale. Yeah.

What a rough school too, right? Yeah. Well, actually my grandfather had been dean of the art and architecture department at Yale. So you had an in? You had an in? My dad grew up in New Haven. But I always kind of had wanted to go to Yale because I had this, I don't know, sense of—

The Earl Street thing? Didn't she go there? She did, but she went to the acting program. I just went to undergrad. It's kind of nice up there. It's weird. It's like a beautiful old school, but the surrounding area, not great, right? Yeah, there's tension between— The locals and— The townies. It's kind of nice up there. It's weird. It's like a beautiful old school, but the surrounding area, not great, right?

Yeah, there's tension between the locals and the townies and the oo-oos. Yeah. And the oo-oos. Yeah. But I, yeah, I thought that I would be able to make a movie in the summer, every summer, and I kind of failed to realize how much work goes into getting work and i was school was just way too did you think you were in demanding you could just call your shots i don't know it just was not not realistic all right so you go to choose one or the other ultimately well what's so you go to the beautiful ivy league school and you decide you're

going to study what i was going to be a psychology major, I thought, so I took a lot of psychology classes, but that involved a lot more lab work than I had anticipated. Yeah. That's not what I meant. That's not what you thought. I just want to be able to sit and talk to people and help them. Yeah, no. Basically, I thought that studying therapy would just be,

would translate into like receiving therapy. I don't know. Because that had been my experience with therapy on the couch. And I didn't, I don't know. When did you start therapy? Oh, God. Like, I'm a New Yorker. Right.

Six or something. So you had to do that. Well, what was your problem, Claire? Well, at six, I had a, I like had, I saw ghosts and things. I was a little OCD. And basically I went a couple times and then- To the weird child shrink? No, to my parents' therapist, Gideon.

Yeah. So you went to Gideon. I went to Gideon. I've seen ghosts and I like to wash my hands. What was it? Yeah, I was starting to really like, it was getting to disrupt my daily life. What, the ghosts?

Like demons were coming out of the shower heads. Really? You were hallucinating? No. But I didn't, but, and there was like a gargoyle on the pipes in our loft, ceiling of our loft. And it would make me do things like assume contorted positions for half an hour or something. The gargoyle made you do that? Mm-hmm.

And what did Gideon say about this? Gideon said, well, can you anticipate the appearance of the gargoyle? You know, basically, are you creating this creature in your head? And I had to admit that, yes, I was. And he said, okay, well, then you have the power to let them go. And did you? Yeah. And basically, once I was in therapy

at six, I was like, oh, this is a problem. I have a problem. And once you realize that you have a problem, it kind of is punctured.

Right. I find. Well, that was just the gargoyle problem. What was the next problem? That was the gargoyle problem. Oh, well, then the next problem

was being a teenager, which is a terrible problem. And you, yeah. I haven't been in therapy for a while. Okay. So you're all better? No.

I just have a kid now and don't have any time. And also I'm in sort of perpetual motion, which makes it tough. When you're busy. Yeah. But okay. So you go for two years and was there a panic like ongoing, my career is going to go away? There must have been some sort of crisis that just dropped out of you. Oh, no, I was really, really glad to not be working.

I was so excited to be at school. I really loved it. Did you find your aesthetic and your values? I did call it jail every so often because it was really intense. But, yeah, finally my kind of desire to act again came back. And did you start studying again? Or did you... Well, it was...

Or did you already feel set? Like, I never understand. Actors can never explain it. Because I tend to think that a lot of acting is a natural ability. So like when you... And you're very good at it. So when you leave Yale and you'd already done the work you'd done, were you, did you feel like you needed to train more

or did you? Well, it was an awkward period after school. Because you're grown up now. In terms of my acting. Because actually I hadn't done it for three years. I was very suddenly very unsure of myself um and i started to um approach roles like i would uh an essay or something you know from this academic standpoint and because that had been my habit so What do you mean? Well, I started to just analyze the character in a very heady way.

You're clearly a heady person. No, no, not only that. But I had to remember that it's basically an intuitive, physical, visceral exercise. So you're trying to deconstruct it. Yeah, I mean, it does require some analysis in the beginning, and with some roles in particular, you have to research more intensely than others. Was that always part of your process?

Or is it just something intuitive? Well, I mean, it seems obvious. Right. You might as well get to know the person. Like with Romeo and Juliet, when I was a kid, I had to kind of figure out what iambic pentameter was, so I read a book on that. Oh, did you? Yeah. There was a time when I was reading everything in iambic pentameter was you know so i read a book on that and you know oh did you yeah there was a time when i was reading everything in iambic well how close was

that did well he didn't do the the whole play did he you're the romeo and juliet you were in but it was it was still in that language it was still all the same yeah all the same language yeah that's pretty exciting movie that was so fun i. I was 16. And Leonardo? Yeah. And Mexico City. All those crazy boys. When you worked with him then, did you feel that he was destined for greatness? He was already a really big deal. Yeah.

Yeah. And then he did Titanic, and then he was like a really big deal. And you were up for that role? Yeah. I don't know. I didn't want to do it And you were up for that role? Yeah. I don't know. I didn't want to do it. Good choice. Yeah, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I'd just done this, like literally just finished filming this romantic epic with Leo in Mexico where they filmed Titanic. And it just seemed a little redundant at that point. But the industry was probably like perfect. They're already working together. Yeah, I guess so. The kids love them. It was years.

I'm going to spend the bulk of my life, my teeny tiny life with Leo. You know, I just, I love him. He's great. But like I wanted to have some other experiences. What was the first role you took after college? I guess it was The Hours and maybe Igby Goes Down. The Hours. So that's with Meryl Streep.

Yeah, it was a tiny role. But you got to be with her. Yeah, I totally got to be with her. Were you nervous? Yeah. And so excited. Because she was it, right? She's a bit oo-oo-oo-y too, though.

Yeah? She's a little oo-oo-oo-y. You can tell. Yeah. a bit ooey too though yeah she's a little yeah you can tell yeah um but she's also um kind of naughty too oh yeah yeah she seems like a troublemaker a little bit yeah a little a little bit but she's such a wizard man oh she's she's absurd she's obscene so when you how old are you so you're what 20 19 uh yeah? Yeah, I guess I was 20. And you get like before, so you get cast in this thing as her daughter, right?

Yeah. And you must have been like, what the fuck? Yeah, a little bit. Rehearsing with her was very out of body. And at one point she, I was struggling with something. She said, you know, you can be bigger. You can be bigger. You can do more.

No, it was like, it was amazing advice to come from that lady. Yeah. Like Oz, you know. And do you have a relationship with Meryl Streep? Yeah. Well, now she's Mamie's mom, which is kind of odd. But she's also, you know, the best actor ever. Yeah.

Still. She is, right? Yeah. That's pretty wild. I think so. Yeah, I do too. And I take it personally. I get verklempt when people, you know,

criticize her for being too, I don't know. Too what? Perfect or innate or, you know, people will accuse her of being kind of studied or affected. I don't know. No, she's just, I think she's incredible. Do you have any idea what, it's a natural gift, right? It's a natural gift and she's also just done it.

I mean, her appetite is still so voracious. I mean, she's always working. What else did you learn from her other than you can be bigger? You can be bigger. Oh, choose your battles, you know. Be strategic about when you complain. But as an actor, when you worked with her

in terms of generosity. You know what was really interesting was that I saw the effort in her practice, you know. Right. She's not a magical creature who, you know, is, you know, just a pure not a you know she's not a magical creature who you know is you know just a pure vessel and she she toils she she wrestles with the thing the idea the

experience and she you know if she's playing an upsetting scene she's upset you know and it's taxing and that was also good to see that it's it's a messy process and it's scary for even the most uh you know um well-trained and best virtuosic yeah yeah you can't like if you're working from that place you're working from that you're working and it's it's hard and it's embarrassing and you can't bother to worry about that like you can't embarrassing well like you have to kind about that. Like you can't. Embarrassing. Well, like you have to kind of make some noise.

You have to really be vulnerable and that can betray things that you might not want people to see necessarily. Sounds. But kind of too bad. Moments. Well, you certainly do that in spades on Homeland. It's so fun to have license to do that is it yeah that's great i mean but i mean there has to be some learning curve as to yeah i mean you can't just kind of go you have to uh have an idea of but you have to also allow yourself to do it even in character i would imagine that you know that that that has to have been from from acting as much as you have to have the comfort to let that part of you out

yeah um and you also have to have a design you know you have to have a like gosh what well so okay so like with temple grandin for example that was great that was great i didn't know who that person was. She's so cool. She's so interesting. Yeah. And I watched that movie. I'm like, not only was I learning, but I was like, oh, my God, Claire Danes is so good.

But that was really great training for me to think about who this manic depressive person would be, or bipolar is the term now. But I actually think manic depressive is sort of more apt. Well, yeah, with Temple Grandin, who is alive and you spent time with yeah and and that that emotional profile must have been incredibly challenging but but it but it's you made it very accessible and i imagine you know given what her particular problem was um how hard was it really to get there once you kind of figured it out well actually i i with my friend tomorrow this choreographer that I had mentioned because she's just so smart about how bodies work so we met with a

lot of autistic teenage girls specifically and just tried to make sense of how it affects their physicality. Right. And we kind of broke it down. And I don't usually do that. I don't usually recruit help in that way. But for this, it was actually really valuable. But, you know, so a lot of autistic people have what's called stims. They self-stimulate.

So actually my husband, Hugh, had played an autistic character in a movie called Adam about six months prior to this. So that was very handy. He had done the research. Our shelves were already stacked with the necessary, the required reading. But yeah, so I had to kind of everybody has their own particular set right of but they're but they're steady they're consistent they're consistent to them they choose it's how they have feel order i guess yes or comfort themselves right so it was fun to turn to you and be like what were your stims yeah well how did you do your panic attacks? But Temple had a very clear set.

And she was amazing to work with because autistic people are often very guileless and they don't really have shame. And she also is an example, a wonderful model for so many people in the autistic community. So she's a scientist. So she would divulge anything I wanted to know, you know. But were you able to sort of draw from her, obviously, from her physicalities as well? Yeah. She still has them. She still has them.

And, you know, she has a very wide stride. And she says, because I have no sense of balance. And, you know, but again, no. Yeah, she's very funny. She had a great sense of humor. But again, no. Yeah, she's very funny. She had a great sense of humor.

I spent a day with her, and she said that, I guess, when she heard that I was doing the movie, of course, she researched me online. She did research on you? How is this blonde girl going to play me? And she said, people said some really mean stuff. Like, I don't think Claire Danes can play a retard. She's so offensive to both of us. But she howled. That was hysterical. It was.

That's amazing. Yeah. So, but, you know, so I had to be really clear about what her stems were. And, you know, she always had her sort of chin down because she was in her own world and didn't feel the desire to engage or empathize with whomever she was talking to. And, you know, so her spine was kind of tight and she did have, you know, she did have this wide stride.

And so collectively, you know, you have this whole dance. Yeah. So you saw it as a series of movements. Yes. Yeah. And that's where the choreographer helped out. Yes. Because that's sort of an interesting approach, isn't it? I mean, I guess people do have movement coaches, but to actually think of it as

What was a vital part of her character for sure. And then that also that was true for Carrie too in her manic stages, her manic phases. Yeah, of course it affects the body. But I love to dance, so that's so fun for me, too.

So connecting the body's not a big issue for you? No, I love it. That's so interesting to me. Because I get in my head, you know, I haven't done a lot of acting, but I've done a little. But I'm sort of like, what are my hands doing right yes it's weird though like some people i imagine when you act enough you're not sitting there going like should i scratch my face yeah i remember i heard meryl talk about her role was it in an ironweed is that oh yeah that was great oh god so good but um what is it a clef symbol?

Is that the musical symbol? She imagined her character as that kind of. I just thought that was so beautiful. But that's often all you need. It takes a lot of work to find that iconic image that is so useful that the whole performance kind of hangs off of. But that's a good example of how an actor might think about. Right. I just talked to another actor.

Who was it? Who pictured himself a fortress, like a building. Yes. Yeah. Like he thought of a building. That makes sense. I guess it does. It's probably easier than, who was it?

Jared Harris. He's so good. He's probably easier than, who was it? Jared Harris. He's so good. He's so good. So good. But like, you know, because I, you know, we were talking about animal work and this and that, but the idea that a cleft or a building is actually easier than like thinking of an animal or a person because it becomes a metaphor that you build on. But I think she probably, you she probably riffed on that literally.

I bet she did kind of slope in that way, hanging off the bar and stuff. And the Homeland role, it's all fresh in my mind. And I grew up with some mental illness in my family. So you play it manic depressive. Yeah. So mania is the propulsion. Well well she's more manic than depressive because it's a tv show and it's a lot more interesting right watching somebody in manic state than someone sitting for many many weeks in a row do you have any mental illness that you

were drawing from in your family or in yourself? No, I mean, I think some depression runs in our family, but no. Because you're pretty wide open in that performance. I'm starting to put it together with Temple and with the character on Homeland and some of your other stuff is that emotionally you're pretty open, it seems, in character. I try. How did you put that character together? It's not a real person.

That's not a real person, and I don't... I mean, there's a lot of license that we're taking here. But I had to bone up on CIA culture. And bipolar disorder? And bipolar disorder. That was a really fun month. But yeah, I went to Langley and I have like a spy big sister who I mentor.

I continue to call now. Really? Do you call her with international policy questions? No, but actually now I'm like a producer. I have this fancy label, but it means that I get to be a little bit more involved in the

creation of the thing yeah and uh so i was invited to go meet with spooks um for for three days with the writers and that was really groovy but um so yeah so i met with this woman i read a lot of books on the cia and then um i met with a a woman who's bipolar, Julie Fast. That's quite a last name for somebody who has that condition. Yeah. And she's written a lot of books on it. And ultimately, the best resource for the bipolar stuff was like vlogs on YouTube.

Because there are a lot of bipolar people who are up in the middle of the night and just need to talk. And so they talk to the camera and so there's a lot there's a culture of bipolar vlogs for other bipolar people or just for people who want to watch bipolar people talk i don't know they have i mean i think it's also a very isolating experience so i imagine they want to share it that um they want to create a community they should um and it's i think it's helpful so you were picking up on the frequency yeah because i was talking to my friend ariel you know i would talk to i have a lot of friends who are there but you

so i talked to them about they're working with their bipolar patients and she said well you know just every case is unique so that you can extrapolate pretty easily. There is no norm necessarily. But she said, I've only seen them in agitated manic states because if they're in a euphoric manic state, they're not coming to therapy. They're not. So, yeah, because it's one thing to read about the condition, but really I just wanted to see people in action. And the best way to do that was to watch these. Agitated manic state.

Yeah. Because your character does not, has it had a euphoric? She has euphoric when she first becomes manic in the first season, the end of the first season. She's feeling pretty good. She's feeling like she has all the answers. And then the great conceit of the show is that in fact, yeah, she does. I mean, which is not true.

I mean, the really tragic thing, the very difficult thing about people with this condition is that there's just so much erraticism. I mean, they will have these insights that are truly brilliant, but they can't hold on to them. They can't really develop them. Because it goes away.

The momentum goes away yeah and it just becomes very disorganized thinking you know that that clarity gets that's why you need uh you need a a rock like mandy patemkin to yeah yeah magical mandy yeah yeah yeah yeah but do you find it like you can get yourself into a mania? Mm-hmm. Now, when you're doing this role, I mean, have you... Yeah, I do kind of get a contact high. Yeah, a little bit. You're getting your dopamine in. Absolutely.

Just to do it. You have control over that to a degree, but it does lock in. Yeah, and it's kind of exhausting. Yeah. After a day of shooting that, does it stay with you? I'm actually pretty good now. I think because when I was a kid, I was in an emotional state for the entire day. Yeah, and that was not economical.

That was counterproductive, ultimately, because you're wasting your energy. Got to reel it in. Because you have to keep it on a simmer. You can't have it on full blast all the time. You have to reserve the energy. So you figured that out. Yeah, over time and just practice. But when you do a season doing uh carrie do you or anything you do i mean have you come out

of out of shoots where you feel overly exposed or ashamed or embarrassed or no because it's not you know it's it's make-believe it's not me it It's not a me. My imaginary friend did it. Oh, yeah? She totally did it. I did not. I'm protected. Uh-huh. So, yeah, that's the great thing.

Do you meditate or you just run? You know, I run. I run. And so many of the people on this show talk about meditating. I think I got to meditate now. But I think that's my equivalent yeah um so it's an hour a day where i no matter what pretty much no matter what i like and because i travel so much it's it's just a portable form of get on the treadmill in the hotel yeah i tried meditating for a while when i was with my musician boyfriend we had a dalliance with tm and uh i was yeah some people dig it what a lot i mean and i i know that

i think i had we had kind of a creepy teacher who was um i don't know just very impressed by fame and so i don't know there was just something a little disingenuous about him. And that kind of turned me off of the thing, which is a shame because, you know. There are people that will attach themselves to the belly of show business. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. But no, I also,

I think probably it would be of value. But, oh gosh. I know, I feel the same way. I'd rather just run around the block a whole lot. Yeah, then sit still and try to clear your head yeah I'm the same way I just started running again it's good yeah I like it a lot that's kind of my thing

so you win now you've won two Emmys for this character yes two congratulations thank you yeah that must feel great it feels really nice it feels really nice because I don't I just don't care like I know that it doesn't matter now i really know that yeah but i have that privilege right of knowing that it really

doesn't matter if you really know that then it's sort of like nice okay yeah i mean i say that and then you know these things are so weird these award things because they matter they do and then they don't and it's really it's very hard for me to kind of categorize them. Yeah. I equate it with like in junior high. Right. When like some guy would come up to you and say, my friend wants to go out with you. Yeah.

And you'd say, but I don't know your friend. And he'd say, well, you'll get to know him. So then you start going out with boy X. Yeah. And in the way that you go out with boy x in junior high which is like don't talk to each other uh-huh for about a month and then break up right yeah sit awkwardly next to each other yeah but over this time with non-communication um i would develop feelings because you know that was my job. I'm a good girl that way.

So, yeah. But then they'd break up with me. And I'd be like, I didn't even freaking know you. How dare you? And now you're breaking up with me. So that's kind of what the award thing feels like. You're tapped. You're courted.

You've got to go find a dress. Right. And then you're all involved. Yeah. And it's totally unrelated to the thing that it's apparently about. Yeah. And then you feel like an asshole and loser. You're just like, what? How did that happen?

But you won two. Yeah, you win them. But I've also not won them. And I've had that experience. And it's like, oh, OK. I guess I'll return the dress yeah oh i i was nominated for an emmy for my so-called life and i'd actually won the golden globe i didn't know anything about anything at this point the golden globes like i don't know what they were that must have been a fun night it was fun it was 13 year old i was i guess i was 15

at that point and um yeah but so by the time the Emmys came around, I was like, well, I won one. Like, maybe I'll win this one. Yeah. Oh, I found, when I was cleaning my house the other day, I found my like sad little thank you note and my little purse, you know. Oh, really? My terrible, like too long, way too earnest, you know. I want to thank all my best friends.

Oh, no. You found the one that you didn't get to give yeah oh my little i guess i was 50 a 15 year old acceptance speech do you you're still pretty earnest oh my god terribly it's like a family curse oh yeah we are so earnest. Yeah. Yeah. And I just have to accept it. I can't. I can't. I can't not. It's really unfortunate.

Is that exhausting? I don't know. What do you, other than run, what do you do for fun? How do you loosen up there, Claire? Embroider. That's it. It's running and embroidering. Kind of.

All right. You're okay with that. That's good. Yeah. Last year, I got really involved with the embroidery and my friends are all

having babies right now in that age and I'm away from them and so I was embroidering like onesies, you know, that was my thing. I would riff on the And so I was embroidering onesies. That was my thing. I would riff on the name. So I'd find the meaning of the name and then find some image that reflected the meaning of the name.

But it got so extreme that the crew turned my director's chair into an embroidery station. So they made an arm, a pin cushion, and I had a special light. So you're kind of obsessive. I'm a little obsessive, yeah. So what's going to happen now? Yeah. I'm a little myopic. Got to keep things in control, right?

I like the control. I like the control, but I'm also a little disorganized, so it's a little confusing. That must be difficult. It's my burden. That's your struggle? It's my struggle. Keeping everything?

I have struggles. I know. It's tough to be a little OCD and a little control freaky, and the world just keeps going, isn't it? It keeps going. Why can't things just be the way you want them to be? It's the exact same all the time. Yeah. I think that's all the time. Yeah. I think that's my, yeah.

And I have great trouble with transition and change and eroticism, and I am in a reality and in a job that forces that upon me constantly. So I'm working it out. So which one of your, was your dad nuts? My dad had a difficult childhood. Yes. Very difficult. Yeah.

But he's not nuts. But I mean, like somehow growing up, it seems to me that if there's got to be, in order to be kind of the earnest control OCD person, there must have been a little like, oh, God. Or was it just New York? Yeah. I mean, it was kind of a, my parents were not terribly typical conservative people by any means. I mean, it was a little chaotic, our living environment. But fine, too. The artsy thing?

Yeah, it was fun. I mean, we had a trapeze and a trampoline and the dark room and, you know. Weird friends coming over? Weird friends. And then my mom had the school, so then it was a literal playground. So it was a very imaginative, you know, creatively fertile environment. So not a lot of boundaries. Not a lot of boundaries. Not a lot of boundaries not a lot of boundaries

not a lot of boundaries i'll do it but that's okay i mean i love my parents and uh they gave i mean proof's in the pudding i'm sane and happy and connected and you know your brother is too and my brother is too so like we're they did great all right well they did fine but But I also think it was a generational shift where now, God, the style of parenting is so much. It's so fastidious. What do you mean? I don't have a kid. Oh. How's the style change?

Like you got a hypervigilant type of thing? Yeah, hypervigilant. And then negotiating, like deliberating what's going to ruin the kid, what isn't going to ruin the kid. Yeah. I mean, corn syrup is like the devil. And that's fair enough. There's truth in that, absolutely. But the kids are so, their lives are so micromanaged. And I was of an era, I mean.

Go ahead and go out into Washington Square by yourself. You're 10. Totally. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. You're 10. Totally. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And no, I was taking the subway alone at 11. Right. Never now.

Never. Never. Never, never. I mean, it'd be like jail to my parents. Right. So, yeah, it was looser for sure. I guess for good reason. I mean, but if you think about New York at that time, it was was it was probably more dangerous much more dangerous yeah i don't know where that trust

came from i think that you know i i know some parents and they're paralyzed with fear all the time yeah which is at every turn you know yeah i mean and it's scary and every time i put my son down you know that's the worst expression i put him to bed yeah um i murder him no no i know that's right he's still young so you've got the whole ride ahead of you yeah the whole ride yeah for sure but no there's this baseline of anxiety because it's just too much like you're responsible for this tiny being um what are you going to do when he starts to get a personality oh it's so hard um he's getting one now he's like he's entering terrible two territory how's that going for you um it's okay uh are you happy you have a boy yeah i'm happy i have him i think he's great i'm he's i'm

so lucky because he's been super easy which which is a very, very fortunate thing. Because I was pregnant with him while I was filming the second season. And then, you know, when I started the last season, he was five months old. And so he's been on this ride with me. So you're going into season four? Going into season four, yeah. He's been there the whole time. Literally.

I mean. Inside and out. Inside and out. Yeah. And what is this charity that you're involved with? Oh, Afghan Hands? Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a nice thing. Yeah. I have a good friend who also happens to be my makeup artist, but sort of disenfranchised women in Afghanistan who, when their husbands die, have no agency and no authority and are kind of beholden to their in-laws and are, yeah, in a very, very bad way. So they have these embroidery skills and we kind of help them develop those skills. And in exchange for their work, they make these scarves and pillows and stuff that we sell. We give them a bit of money and an education.

They learn, they're mostly illiterate, and they learn to read and write and just, it's kind of teach a man a fish kind of theory. Right. And they can create, you know, opportunities to exist more comfortably in the world. Do you spend time over there? I haven't been able.

I would love to go, but it's just been too dangerous. But I would really like to go. And my mom, who was a textile designer, actually designed a line of scarves that they then made. So that's going to be available on the website, AfghanHands.org. And it's a really nice idea. It's like a conversation between us and these other women. And we'd love to go and actually see them and embroider together.

Yeah. There you go. Maybe you can bring everyone a director's chair. Yeah. Yeah. I know what you really need. That's the dream. A director's chair yeah I'm

sure you know what a lot of people need right yeah clearly yeah all right well good luck with the child rearing thank you and then the new season thank you and keeping everything under control all gonna be fine yeah I feel that gonna be great I feel that Claire. I really do. All right, that's our show, folks. Thank you for listening. Isn't she lovely? Very earnest.

Great conversation. I was very flattered that you wanted to come on the show. I was excited to see her. And it really was actually very exciting for me to talk to Claire Danes. I do want to remind you again that you can go to our website, and you can use the Shop on Amazon banner that's on the homepage of WTFpod.com. There's also a banner on Adam Carolla's site. And just go shopping, and let's move some of that money to keep this legal defense fund going so we can fight personal audio, because they do not have a patent on podcasting

anyways yeah so this week we have three episodes on wednesday we're gonna have the guys who wrote the humor code and on friday pat healy from the movie cheap thrills which is a very disturbingly great movie and me and pat have some history so that was a great conversation it's weird there's moments where where i you know i forget my life I forget the history some guy who used to live here when I was in New York Don Kelly a good friend of mine his brother just sent me a book his brother apparently hung out here at the house

and took pictures of all the cats around and he had a book made for me and it just came in the mail and it's got pictures of Boomer and Moxie some of the strays that are no longer around. It was kind of emotional. Boomer was a great cat.

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