Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1310
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Claire Danes works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Claire Danes appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Claire. Temple Grandin is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for drama, comedy, history. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Silas Howard, Dave McCary, Mick Jackson and others, Claire Danes helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
Temple Grandin (2010) as Temple Grandin · Stardust (2007) as Yvaine · The Hours (2002) as Julia Vaughan
Career snapshot
Ranked #1310 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
1994–2018
Career length
24 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Temple Grandin
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Temple Grandin
Most frequent director
Silas Howard
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Silas Howard
Most common genre
Drama
14 titles
Average runtime
1h 54m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.6
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
2010s
6.8 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. A Kid Like Jake, Brigsby Bear, Temple Grandin — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.8
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Brokedown Palace, Les Misérables, The Rainmaker.
Most productive era
1990s
7 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.87 films | 6.54 films | 6.83 films |
| Action | — | 6.21 film | — |
| Thriller | 6.73 films | 6.21 film | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.32 films | 7.11 film |
| Crime | 6.93 films | — | — |
| Romance | 6.85 films | 6.53 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1994Little Women
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Beth March.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2010Temple Grandin
7.4 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2018A Kid Like Jake
The current state of the argument, as Alex Wheeler.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
16 of 16 films
as Temple Grandin
Directed by Mick Jackson
as Yvaine
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
as Kelly Riker
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
as Beth March
Directed by Unknown
as Juliet
Directed by Baz Luhrmann
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Temple Grandin
Temple Grandin (2010)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Temple Grandin gives Claire Danes a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Yvaine
Stardust (2007)
Performance score7.6
Stardust asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Yvaine is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Kelly Riker
The Rainmaker (1997)
Performance score7.4
The Rainmaker asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kelly Riker is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Beth March
Little Women (1994)
Performance score7.4
Little Women asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Beth March is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Temple Grandin
Start here. Temple Grandin is the clearest statement of what Claire Danes does — accessible, 108 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Claire at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
Little Women (1994)
Keeps the drama register of Temple Grandin but asks for a colder reading of it.
Romeo + Juliet (1996)
Keeps the romance register of Little Women but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Rainmaker (1997)
Keeps the drama register of Romeo + Juliet but asks for a colder reading of it.
Stardust (2007)
A deliberate change of key after The Rainmaker — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jocelyn Moorhouse
Director
1 film together
Notably How to Make an American Quilt
Baz Luhrmann
Director
1 film together
Notably Romeo + Juliet
Oliver Stone
Director
1 film together
Notably U Turn
Francis Ford Coppola
Director
1 film together
Notably The Rainmaker
Bille August
Director
1 film together
Notably Les Misérables
Jonathan Kaplan
Director
1 film together
Notably Brokedown Palace
Stephen Daldry
Director
1 film together
Notably The Hours
Jonathan Mostow
Director
1 film together
Notably Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Thomas Bezucha
Director
1 film together
Notably The Family Stone
Lajos Koltai
Director
1 film together
Notably Evening
Matthew Vaughn
Director
1 film together
Notably Stardust
Richard Linklater
Director
1 film together
Notably Me and Orson Welles
Mick Jackson
Director
1 film together
Notably Temple Grandin
Dave McCary
Director
1 film together
Notably Brigsby Bear
Silas Howard
Director
1 film together
Notably A Kid Like Jake
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Mick Jackson
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Temple GrandinMatthew Vaughn
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
StardustStephen Daldry
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The HoursDave McCary
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Brigsby BearBille August
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Les MisérablesFrancis Ford Coppola
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The RainmakerBaz Luhrmann
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Romeo + JulietOliver Stone
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
U TurnJonathan Kaplan
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Brokedown PalaceRichard Linklater
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Me and Orson WellesJocelyn Moorhouse
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
How to Make an American QuiltThomas Bezucha
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Family StoneJonathan Mostow
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Terminator 3: Rise of the MachinesSilas Howard
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Kid Like JakeLajos Koltai
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
EveningSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Stardust
as Yvaine
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Stardust
as Yvaine
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Little Women
as Beth March
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Hours
as Julia Vaughan
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Temple Grandin
as Temple Grandin
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Claire Danes has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
24 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Drama Legend
Awarded
14 catalogue titles in drama, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
Stardust
as Yvaine
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Rainmaker
as Kelly Riker
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Stardust
as Yvaine
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Brokedown Palace
as Alice Marano
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Stardust
as Yvaine
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
as Kate Brewster
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Me and Orson Welles
as Sonja Jones
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Romeo + Juliet
as Juliet
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Al Pacino
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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