Claire Danes has been gracing our screens since she was 15 when she starred in the cult classic My So-Called Life. Since then, she’s played many high-profile roles including Beth March in the 1994 adaptation of Little Women and the titular Juliet in Baz Luhrmann’s lauded Romeo + Juliet. From 2011 to 2020, Danes returned to the small screen on Showtime’s hit series Homeland. The actress is appearing next in Apple TV+’s adaptation The Essex Serpent, which hits the streaming service on May 13, 2022. Behind the great successes of her career has been a tumultuous dating history in her younger days followed by one of the strongest marriages in Hollywood. Danes’ personal life isn’t the stuff of tabloid fodder anymore, but her sweet 13-years-and-counting relationship is worth taking a few notes from. Below is a deep dive on Danes’ whirlwind romance and steady marriage.
Who is Claire Danes married to?
Claire Danes is in one of the most successful Hollywood marriages of all time. She’s married to fellow actor Hugh Dancy, who is best known for his turns in romance films like The Jane Austen Book Club and Confessions of a Shopaholic. Dancy has also had a prolific career in television on shows like Hannibal, The Path and the recent revival of Law & Order. The British actor started acting as a teenager and performed in the Winchester College Players production of Shakespeare’sTwelfth Night. After graduating from St. Peter’s College in Oxford, he moved to London and serendipitously met a casting director after a conversation in a cafe. From there he started getting bit parts before rising to prominence in 2000 when he played the titular role in the television movie David Copperfield.
How did Claire Danes and her husband meet?
Danes and Dancy had a true Hollywood romance, meeting on the set of their 2007 film Evening. The couple played fictional lovers embroiled in a tumultuous love triangle onscreen, and while they started out as just friends, the filming in picturesque Rhode Island brought them closer together. “There was one day when we were bicycling by the water and it was sparkly and idyllic, and I just had this dumb epiphany, like, I’m really just happy,” Danes spilled to Marie Claire in 2017. Initially, Danes planned to stay single and play the field since she had been the type of person to jump from relationship to relationship. But in her attempts to have casual sex with others, she had an epiphany and realized that Dancy was the one she wanted. On Dax Shepard’s podcast Armchair Expert, she confessed that the one-night stand was the “palate cleanser” needed to realize her true feelings. When she returned to the Evening set, Dancy’s existence sparked something in her. “Oh s**t! I think I’m going to marry this person,” she remembered thinking. Not long after that, they began dating and Dancy wow-ed her even further with his ornament-making skills at a Christmas party. “He made an ornament of cowboy paper dolls, and I thought, ‘And he crafts?’ That was it. You have me for the rest of our lives,” she told Net-a-Porter.
Has Claire Danes been married before?
Nope, neither Danes nor Dancy have been married before! However, that doesn’t mean that they don’t have their own unique dating histories. Danes dated singer Ben Lee when she was 18, and the pair dated for six years before breaking up in 2003. After that, she quickly started a high-profile relationship with her Stage Beauty co-star Billy Crudup—the only problem was that he was already taken. Danes’ relationship with Crudup led to the dissolution of his relationship with actress Mary-Louise Parker, who was at the time seven months pregnant with his child. Danes later reflected on her actions, telling Howard Stern in 2015 (via PEOPLE): “I just was in love with him and needed to explore that and was 24. Didn’t quite know what those consequences might be.” Dancy’s dating history doesn’t come with quite as much baggage, though he was involved with an A-List actress before meeting his future wife. From 2002 to 2004, Dancy dated Anne Hathaway, and prior to that he dated British visual artist Annie Morris.
Do Claire Danes and her husband have kids?
After meeting in 2006, the couple tied the knot in 2009 in a private ceremony in France. Three years later in December 2012, they had their first child Cyrus Michael Christopher Dancy, and welcomed a second son, Rowan, in August 2018. The family primarily lives in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan, and the boys are already well-versed in their parents’ careers. Danes told PEOPLE that Cyrus would occasionally visit the set of her smash hit Homeland. “He’s the Homeland baby—I was pregnant with him filming. Third season, he was five months. I have so many photos of him in various stages of development in Carrie Mathison’s chair,” she recalls. And he might even be a little director-in-training: “He loves the [show ’s operations room] because of all the lights. It’s a great environment for a kid. It’s the circus!”
Are Hugh Dancy and Claire Danes still married?
Yes, the couple is still going strong 13 years later! Over the years, Danes has gushed about her relationship with Dancy while also thanking her mother for being a role model of what a long, happy marriage can look like. Danes also told The Sun that she “likes marriage. I feel very secure. It helps when you are in love with the person you are married to.” It helps that Dancy is a looker, and Danes is well aware of that too. “I do sometimes look at him and think: ‘You are really handsome.’ He keeps me sane and happy,” she said. The duo have had to battle through some difficult bouts of long-distance, which has only made their relationship stronger. With their sometimes conflicting shooting schedules, they often end up in different cities—like when Danes was shooting Homeland in North Carolina and her husband was in Toronto for Hannibal. Danes confessed to Net-a-Porter, “That distance is corrosive, and I’m just bad at it. And I don’t particularly want to get good at it. We learned along the way how essential it is for us to be physically together as often as possible.” Dancy himself doesn’t speak as openly about their marriage or post on social media, but Danes has posted enough loving posts of the two of them to know their relationship is happy and stable. Most recently she shared a picture of them at Valentine’s Day dinner, with Dancy’s hands forming a heart on the other side of the table. Awww! Next, find out why Miranda Lambert says her marriage to husband Brendan McLoughlin is “golden.”
