Claire Danes: I have more characters in me

Claire Danes thinks she has “more lives” to fulfil in her career.

The 36-year-old has taken on many iconic roles over the years, including Juliet in Romeo + Juliet when she was just 16. She has also starred in hit TV shows My So-Called Life and most recently, Homeland as bipolar CIA agent Carrie Mathison.

“People call me Carrie all the time,” she admitted during a TimesTalks event in New York City. “Unless I'm doing a scene with another actor and then they tend to call me Claire! It's all mixed up. I hope people are kind of flexible enough to appreciate me in different contexts but I've got more lives in me.”

Claire is married to fellow actor Hugh Dancy and together they have two-year-old son Cyrus. But despite both being in the spotlight, and Claire having been so since a very young age, she admitted the couple don’t have the same aspirations for their little boy.

“Hugh and I say, we just want him to be an environmental engineer. We don't know what that means but it sounds good and it sounds very, very, very far away from [a performance life],” she laughed. “The idea makes me nervous and if he's interested then I will facilitate it but I'm not sure.”

In the meantime, Claire is just happy to focus on her son’s formative years and her work on the award winning series Homeland. She previously teased fans about what they can expect from season five which will air later this year.

“I think the idea is that she's left the CIA, she's utterly disenchanted and isolated, and during those intervening years, she's acquired an actual life, which she's maybe never had before," she told E! News. "That will be interesting, to see her in that context, to be in a relationship, to actually be committed to her child, to have friends.”