Claire Catherine Danes (born April 12, 1979) is an American actress. She is the recipient of three Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. In 2012, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2015 she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Danes gained early recognition for her role as Angela Chase in the 1994 teen drama series My So-Called Life. That role earned her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress and an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. That same year, she made her film debut in Little Women (1994). Her other films include Home for the Holidays (1995), Romeo + Juliet (1996), The Rainmaker (1997), Les Misérables (1998), Brokedown Palace (1999), the 1999 English dub of Princess Mononoke (1997), The Hours (2002), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Shopgirl (2005), Stardust (2007), and A Kid Like Jake (2018).

From 1998 to 2000, Danes attended Yale University but dropped out to return to her acting career. In 2000, she appeared in an Off-Broadway production of The Vagina Monologues, and in 2007 she made her Broadway debut as Eliza Doolittle in a revival of Pygmalion. In 2010, she played Temple Grandin in the critically acclaimed HBO television film Temple Grandin, which earned her a second Golden Globe and her first Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie. From 2011 to 2020, she starred as Carrie Mathison in the Showtime drama series Homeland, for which she received two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, two Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Television Series – Drama, and a Television Critics Association Award for Individual Achievement in Drama.