\n<\/p>\n
I<\/span>n the new thriller The Beast in Me, a memoirist takes on a sinister property developer who may or may not have killed his first wife, and it\u2019s not entirely clear which of the two is more dangerous. It has been billed by Netflix as \u201ccat and mouse\u201d, but Claire Danes prefers to think of it as the more evenly matched snake\u00a0and mongoose.<\/p>\n \u201cI liked the idea of a writer being truly dangerous, and predatorial,\u201d she says of her character, Aggie Wiggs \u2013 grieving the loss of her young son and living divorced and alone in a big house she can\u2019t afford \u2013 who develops a fascination with her new neighbour. Nile Jarvis (I\u00a0can get on board with everything in the gripping eight-part series except, perhaps, just about every character\u2019s name) is certainly monstrous, may also be a murderer, but might just have found his equal, because \u201cshe\u2019s a real fighter, and she doesn\u2019t have that much to lose\u201d.<\/p>\n When they meet, explosively, Aggie is riding the tail end of the success of a bestselling memoir, and running out of money. Her marriage collapsed in the aftermath of their son\u2019s death in an accident, and Aggie\u2019s behaviour towards the young man she believes was responsible has landed her with a restraining order. \u201cI really grew to enjoy her company,\u201d says Danes. \u201cShe\u2019s in a lot of pain that she\u2019s not fully admitting to herself, but I admired her mind, her intellectual integrity and her chutzpah and, ultimately, her depth of feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018They\u2019re soul mates, but sex isn\u2019t at play\u2019 \u2026 Claire Danes as Aggie Wiggs and Matthew Rhys as Nile Jarvis in The Beast in Me.<\/span> Photograph: Netflix<\/p>\n Aggie is experiencing writer\u2019s block on her new book, a worthy analysis of the friendship, across the political divide, of the US supreme court justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia. \u201cI\u00a0think it\u2019s a story that could offer hope,\u201d Aggie says, uncertainly, over lunch with Nile (Matthew Rhys), her sinister new friend. \u201cNo\u00a0one wants hope,\u201d he snaps back. \u201cPeople want gossip and carnage.\u201d Sadly, he\u2019s not wrong, but then what we want and what we need are rarely the same thing. Try befriending a sociopath who may end up manifesting your darkest desires and see how that plays out (it\u2019s not a spoiler to say: not ideal).<\/p>\n Their dynamic is all the more fun, and refreshing, because there\u2019s no romantic subtext \u2013 Aggie is a lesbian, but Nile is a rich sociopath so, of course, he thinks she wants to have sex with him. \u201cThey\u2019re really excited by each other, and wrestling for power with each other, but they\u2019re also genuinely delighting in each other,\u201d says Danes, when we speak over Zoom. \u201cThey\u2019re kind of soulmates, but they\u2019re adversaries, and sex isn\u2019t at play. That was interesting. I\u2019d never played that, and I haven\u2019t really seen it before.\u201d<\/p>\n Was she nervous about playing a lesbian character and how that might be perceived at a time when we question whether apparently straight people \u2013 Danes is married to the actor Hugh Dancy, with whom she has three children \u2013 should be taking queer roles? \u201cOh, that\u2019s interesting,\u201d she says. \u201cNo, I wasn\u2019t, to be honest, but maybe I\u00a0should have been.\u201d Thoughtful and intelligent as Danes is, I can\u2019t work out if she\u2019s being a little disingenuous. But it was intriguing not to have to be considered \u201csexy\u201d to a male character, probably for the first time in her career. As a girl, she says, \u201cI had to learn how to cultivate and assume a more feminine affect\u201d. She remembers consciously training herself to walk in a more alluring way. \u201cAnd suddenly in this role, I felt I could let some of that go. I felt like my 11-year-old self, before I had to present in a particular way, and that was really enjoyable, quite freeing.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018I wasn\u2019t nervous about playing a lesbian, but maybe I should have been\u2019 \u2026 Danes as Aggie Wiggs in The Beast in Me. <\/span> Photograph: Netflix<\/p>\n There were parallels with Carrie Mathison, the CIA agent Danes played over eight seasons of Homeland, the role she is still best known for. \u201cShe definitely was a dangerous person who didn\u2019t have much to lose, and was deeply isolated and super-brilliant. Carrie probably did use her feminine wiles a little more.\u201d She laughs and adds: \u201cBut she was still in a pantsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n Could she imagine Homeland now, in the current political climate where TV networks are nervy in Trump\u2019s America and politics moves ever faster? \u201cI hope so,\u201d says Danes. \u201cI don\u2019t know if another show was so committed to reflecting the political moment as it was happening as Homeland was, and that was really exciting.\u201d She remembers spending a week with intelligence experts, \u201cwhat I started calling spy camp\u201d, before the writers went off to write each new season. \u201cWe would get a forecast. It was a great privilege, and a little TMI sometimes. I miss it. There was something wonderful about being able to metabolise what was happening, politically, and reflect and comment on it in this fictional work. I don\u2019t have that means of expression any more.\u201d<\/p>\n She doesn\u2019t think a Homeland-style show would be impossible to create today, though. \u201cThis is a funny metaphor that\u2019s coming to mind, but if you want to wear a ballgown, wear a fucking ballgown. I think it\u2019s a little like that. If you decide to make a show like that, you\u2019ll make a show like that. I don\u2019t know that Homeland was made because the climate allowed for it. I\u00a0think that show was made because Howard [Gordon] and Alex [Gansa] wanted to make it.\u201d On her own feelings about the state of politics in the US, she says carefully, \u201cIt\u2019s scary. It feels very volatile, and I\u2019m really sad about how frightened we are of each other right now. I\u2019m sad about that, so many of us are distrustful of each other.\u201d<\/p>\n It was Danes, who is a producer on The Beast in Me, who brought Homeland producer Gordon in to get it made, after it stalled for a couple of years (she was sent the script during the pandemic by Jodie Foster, who at one point was going to direct). \u201cIt\u2019s really the first time I\u2019ve produced a project from the beginning, and that was wonderful, I loved that,\u201d she says, then adds with a laugh: \u201cThat\u2019s the nice thing about being old. I\u2019ve made friends along the way, and I can turn to them to make something with me.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018It was a little awkward, but it was OK\u2019 \u2026 Danes with Jared Leto in My So-Called Life in 1994.<\/span> Photograph: Studiocanal\/Allstar<\/p>\n Danes is obviously not old \u2013 she\u2019s 46 \u2013 but has been working for decades. She grew up in Manhattan, with artistic parents, and discovered a love of acting and performing as a child. The family moved to California when Danes got the lead role of Angela Chase in teen drama My So-Called Life. Danes was 14, and the boy she was supposed to have a crush on was played by Jared Leto, who was 21, an age gap that these days would be considered vastly inappropriate. Did it feel awkward at the time?<\/p>\n \u201cA little, but it was OK,\u201d she says. Everything was awkward then. \u201cI\u00a0had barely kissed a boy and here I was making out with this Adonis, and I didn\u2019t even know how to interpret the stage directions. Like it said I was supposed to kiss his face, and I did not know what that meant. I didn\u2019t know that there was any other terrain that one could explore.\u201d It was strange she says, \u201ccircling these themes in real time. Two months later, what I was exploring as Angela would suddenly become personally relevant to me.\u201d Teenagehood, she points out, \u201cis so Kafka-esque. It\u2019s a really wild ride, and there I was, having a parallel one as a fictional self.\u201d<\/p>\n But it never felt exploitative or damaging, she says. The people who created the show, including writer Winnie Holzman, \u201cwere bona fide benevolent grownups, so it was a very solid, sane environment. That was luck. Not every environment is.\u201d But would she say it\u2019s a good thing that we probably wouldn\u2019t cast a 21-year-old man opposite a 14-year-old love interest now? \u201cI really don\u2019t know. We might, would we not? I honestly don\u2019t know what my moral stance on that is. Maybe because it just was my experience, and I felt safe.\u201d But working with intimacy coordinators now as standard is great, she adds. \u201cHow did we not have that before? I\u2019m very for it. But it is funny to be working with an intimacy coordinator for the first time as a 45-year-old.\u201d She smiles. \u201cLike, it\u2019s a little late.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Young love \u2026 Danes with Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo + Juliet in 1996.<\/span> Photograph: Allstar Picture Library\/Alamy<\/p>\n Danes seems to have survived decades in the industry, apparently relatively unscathed. \u201cI think it was good that I took a little time out and went to college,\u201d she says. Around the height of her movie fame, having co-starred with Leonardo DiCaprio in the 1996 film Romeo + Juliet (she was 17 during filming, he was 21), she spent two years at Yale studying psychology.<\/p>\n \u201cMy parents were always very present when I was on set as a kid,\u201d she says, \u201cand made sure I was protected and my needs were met, and I had a good tutor, and sufficient rest, that kind of thing.\u201d Others looked out for her. Jodie Foster directed her when she was a teenager in the 1995 family comedy drama Home for the Holidays. What has she learned from the great Foster? \u201cShe said a lot of things, but she always has urged me to advocate for myself. And also to relax.\u201d<\/p>\n Mostly, Danes just really loves the work \u2013 everything else that comes with being a successful actor \u2013 the attention and awards \u2013 is, she says, \u201ckind of just noise\u201d even if what she describes as \u201cthe undulations of success\u201d are what leads to more work. \u201cI hope that people are connecting with what I\u2019m trying to make, and I also hope that I have another chance at making another thing.\u201d She laughs. \u201cLike, that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n The Beast in Me is on Netflix from 13 November.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the new thriller The Beast in Me, a memoirist takes on a sinister property developer who may or may not have killed his first wife, and it\u2019s not entirely clear which of the two is more dangerous. It has been billed by Netflix as \u201ccat and mouse\u201d, but Claire Danes prefers to think of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[18558,3774,2866,2919,11378,16719,6241,167,4113,6413,18559,7446,1779],"class_list":{"0":"post-32028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-adonis","9":"tag-barely","10":"tag-boy","11":"tag-camp","12":"tag-claire","13":"tag-danes","14":"tag-kissed","15":"tag-making","16":"tag-sex","17":"tag-spy","18":"tag-stardom","19":"tag-teen","20":"tag-television"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}