Claire Danes

College was just so essential for my sense of self and my development.

By the time I went to Yale, I'd been acting for a long time and I was really tired of it. I was restless - and a little bored - and I was really eager to investigate different parts of myself.

The twenties are a deceptively challenging-slash-painful time. I'm just glad to be out of that phase.

As a young performer, I didn't know that you can have a great time playing someone in terrible crisis. The more you know it's not real, the deeper you can go into it. And the easier it is to let it go when it's done.

I was a very confident child. I knew I wanted to be an actress from the age of 5.

I was very driven to act from a very young age, and my parents were not only tolerant of that drive but also encouraging.

I have this book club, and we don't read one book; we offer up a few suggestions and create a library over time.

Steve Martin is one of my favorite performers, writers, artists of all time.

The first time I realised I was patriotic was after September 11th.

I became very successful at a young age... I had lots of opportunities and lots of power and had no idea how to focus it.

I actually think in some ways that it might be more challenging to be bipolar because it's so mercurial - it's so ever-changing. You can't get any traction. You can't build on a system. Whereas, somebody who has Asperger's, which is certainly a much more forgiving expression of autism, can create models for coping and build on them over time.

I really have never been concerned about being beautiful on-screen. That's just not my jam.