She made her film debut in the same year in Little Women (1994), and gained wider fame for starring in the romance Romeo + Juliet (1996).

Danes has since appeared in The Rainmaker (1997), Brokedown Palace (1999), The Hours (2002), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Shopgirl (2005), and Stardust (2007).

She appeared in an Off-Broadway production of The Vagina Monologues in 2000 and made her Broadway debut playing Eliza Doolittle in a 2007 revival of Pygmalion.

In 2010, Danes portrayed the title character in the HBO film Temple Grandin for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film.

[7] Danes's father worked as a residential general contractor in New York for 20 years in a company he ran called "Overall Construction".

[12] She attended the New York City Lab School for Collaborative Studies in Manhattan,[2] where her future Homeland co-star Morena Baccarin and she were classmates.

[2] Later that same year, Danes played a 15-year-old teenage murderer in a guest starring role on Law & Order in the season three episode "Skin Deep".

In 2010, Danes returned to television starring in the HBO production of Temple Grandin, a biopic about the autistic animal scientist.

[21] From 2011 to 2020, Danes starred in the Showtime series Homeland, in which she played Carrie Mathison, an agent of the CIA who has bipolar disorder.

[25] In 2022, Danes replaced Keira Knightley as Cora Seaborn in the Apple TV drama series The Essex Serpent, based on the 2016 novel by Sarah Perry.

[27][28] In 1997, Danes played abused wife Kelly Riker in The Rainmaker, directed by Francis Ford Coppola,[11] as well as Jenny in Oliver Stone's noir U Turn.

That same year, she played the role of Julie Barnes in the big screen adaptation of the 1970s TV show The Mod Squad.

Later that year, she co-starred as Clarissa Vaughan's (played by Meryl Streep) daughter in the Oscar-nominated film The Hours.

Danes got her start in New York City theater appearing in performances of Happiness, Punk Ballet, and Kids Onstage, for which she choreographed her own dance.

In November of that same year, she appeared as Emily Webb in a one-night-only staged reading of Thornton Wilder's Our Town at All Saints' Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills.

The production was staged by Bess Armstrong, who had played the mother of Danes's character on My So-Called Life.

[36] In March 2016, Danes performed in Dry Powder by Sarah Burgess at The Public Theater, starring alongside John Krasinski, Hank Azaria and Sanjit De Silva.

Restrictions imposed on Danes involved a ban from entering Manila or the Philippines and prohibition on distribution of her films in the region.

[notes 1] The ban came after Danes said Manila, the capital of the Philippines, "smelled of cockroaches, with rats all over, and that there is no sewage system, and the people do not have anything – no arms, no legs, no eyes".

[46][47][48] Danes and her mother are supporters of the charity Afghan Hands, which helps women in Afghanistan gain independence, education, and livable wages.

[49] Danes is also a long time supporter of DonorsChoose, a website that allows public school teachers to create project requests.

Their relationship attracted significant media attention, as it led to Crudup's break-up with actress Mary-Louise Parker, who was seven months pregnant with their child at the time.