Claire Danes Tells Allure About Her Cry Face, Being Fearless & Not Saving The World

Claire Danes has had a hell of a year. She’s starred in a reinvigorated Homeland and played a cheating wife in Aziz Ansari’s masterful Master of None. Now, she’s covering Allure magazine and dropping knowledge that has nothing to do with potentially drowning her baby on Homeland. The My So-Called Life star said that she takes issue with people describing her as a fearless actress. “Oh, I’m full of fear. I care about things; therefore, I have fears,” she tells Allure. “I like to think that I’m brave, which is different. Brave means you’re able to admit that you care. If you care, you are vulnerable.” Just as she did in a Bazaar cover story last year, the actress dished on her infamous “cry face.” “I’m very vain about my performance. I want to give as honest a performance as I can. But I’m not so worried about being regarded as beautiful when I’m playing a character,” she tells Allure. “I have plenty of vanity in my life. I want to look pretty in the world. But I can be this bottomless pit.” I’ve never fully understood the big deal about the mythical Danes cry face. Do any of us look good when we cry? It seems like the height of absurdity to call out an actress for her production of maybe the rawest human emotion. Also, how would you like it if Claire Danes came to your work and took pictures of the faces you make when you’re checking email? (Actually, wait: That sounds awesome, never mind.) Danes also spoke of future plans, perhaps hinting that Master of None could become the rule rather than the exception when it comes to future roles. “I’d love to do a comedy. I’d love to play somebody who is much more terrestrial and low-key and of this planet that most of us know and love,” Danes says. “I would like to maybe not save the world for a second.”