Claire Danes stars as Cosette in the new adaptation of “Les Misérables”
If you were a high school student assigned to write a book report on “Les Misérables,” Victor Hugo’s sprawling novel of 19th century France, you might supplement your research by reading the Cliff’s Notes or watching the musical.
And if you were Claire Danes, star of film adaptations of such literary giants as Louisa May Alcott, William Shakespeare and (er) John Grisham, you would act in the latest movie version of “Les Misérables.” In the non-musical epic, directed by Bille August (“Pelle the Conqueror”), Danes plays Cosette, a girl whose romance with a French revolutionary threatens the safety of her adoptive father, parole violator Jean Valjean (Liam Neeson), who is the quarry of the relentless Inspector Javert (Geoffrey Rush). The film opened in the US on May 1.
When Danes shot the movie last spring, she had the book added to her senior-year reading list. “So I was writing essays on the book, and I was killing two birds with one stone,” she notes, “because I was doing my homework for high school, and I was preparing for the role simultaneously.”
Although the 19-year-old actress first gained fame playing an archetypal teen on ABC’s “My So-Called Life,” Danes’ teen-age years have been anything but typical. For four years, she’s been a favorite among audiences and critics alike on both small and large screens. She has acted opposite such budding heartthrobs as Leonardo DiCaprio (in “Romeo and Juliet”) and Matt Damon (“The Rainmaker”). In the last year, she has traveled around the world, fallen in love (her boyfriend is teen-age Australian rock star Ben Lee), bought an apartment in New York’s arty SoHo neighborhood and been accepted at Yale, where she’ll enroll this fall.
Does she ever feel she has missed out on having a normal teen-age life? “Yeah, but if I had just gone to high school and not had the pressures I’ve had over the past couple of years, that have given me health problems at various points in my career, I would have missed out on all the traveling that I’ve done, and I wouldn’t have been able to have my freedom at such a young age. I wouldn’t be able to create a nest for myself in New York. I’ve got the long end of the stick. I’m in good shape.”
Having essentially grown up on screen, Danes says, “Because I’m not disciplined enough to keep a proper journal — I have about 10 sitting on my bookshelf at home, and the first five pages are filled, and then I stop — so here, I’m documenting my youth in another way. It’s equally as effective, I think. It’s nice when time passes and I can watch projects I did a couple years ago because finally I’m able gain some perspective and objectivity. Otherwise, I think whatever scene I’m not in is genius.”
She is similarly modest about her academic skills. Of Yale, Danes says, “I’m totally nervous about that. I feel completely inadequate as a student. I’m praying I got in for all the right reasons. But I think these are insecurities I share with most freshmen.”
Her hope is to shoot one movie during each of her summers off, if she even chooses to stay in college. “I’m going to go for the one year, and if it feeds me, then I’ll go the second year. I can’t imagine what life will be like four years from now, so I’m not going to try. I can barely manage planning the rest of my day. But I don’t have to because I have somebody else to do it for me.”
Danes would like to major in psychology. “It’s pretty similar to acting. It’s the study of human nature. There are enough parallels there to make me feel relatively comfortable. I’ve been in therapy since I was 7, when I was chased by a gargoyle that would make me do crazy things. And I’ve got a lot from it.”
In fact, as a child, Danes dreamed of being either an actress or a therapist. “I decided I was going to be an actress when I was 5, and when I was 10 years old, and I found out most of them were broke, I decided to reassess my plan. I was going to be a therapist, live in California, right next door to my best friend, and share a pool, and we could have two slides into each other’s backyards. I was going to work in acting workshops on the side.
“Then I thought about that for about half a year, and I made an announcement to my parents, ‘No, no, money or no money, I must be true to my art.’ So I was prepared to waitress. Luckily that didn’t happen. I just followed my hunches. I knew when I was a baby what would be right for me when I was older. It sounds bizarre, but it’s turned out to be true.”
Asked what challenges remain for her in movies, Danes replies, “Well, Joan of Arc keeps threatening to come back into my life, and that would be my dream role. Because I want more levity,” she quips. “But it looks like I might sail past that project because you need to be the right age for it, and I may, amazingly enough, get old and not be appropriate for it.
“I want to do a romantic comedy, like every other girl my age. It’s really hard because it’s the 24-year-old genre. I’m still milking the whole teen-age thing.”
Danes’ next few roles certainly look like changes of pace. In “Brokedown Palace,” she’s a tourist in Thailand framed on a drug charge. In “Polish Wedding,” she’s a teen sexpot. (“I get knocked up,” she chirps.) And this month, she starts shooting the film version of “The Mod Squad,” playing the Peggy Lipton role opposite Omar Epps and Giovanni Ribisi.
Enthuses Danes, “We’re going to do it in L.A., where it’s cosy, and I have a pool in a house I’m renting, and I can have barbecues on the weekends and work with a trainer and wear cool clothes and tell a hip, swinging story with a hip, swinging cast and crew. It’s going to be set in the present day, but with a ’70s flavor. You don’t have to try very hard in L.A. because the architecture never evolved after 1972 or something.”
Danes shrugs off labels, even when they’re as complimentary as being called the best actress of her generation. “Once you’ve been labeled with that, even if you do a poor job, people will still believe that you’re the best actress of your generation. Hey, it’s totally flattering. I’d much prefer to be labeled a really great actress than a really cute blonde.”
She insists she’s not as demure as her image. “Somebody took a poll, and I was voted the cleanest celebrity, and I was given a whole bunch of bath products. People call me ‘cherubic’ and ‘angelic.’ I think it’s because I played a character whose name was Angela [on “My So-Called Life”], and I wore wings in “Romeo and Juliet,” and I played an angel in a video, and Cosette’s saintly. Actually, that’s not true. She’s a little rebellious. But people think I’m pure and really sweet, which is great, but I’m not so one-dimensional.”
What about her do fans identify with? “They think I’m like a friend, this really cool girl who would be fun to talk to in the back of class.”
And is she?
Danes can’t contain a smile. “Yeah!”
Claire Danes on the set of “Les Misérables.”