Claire Danes Does Harvard 'Whackadoodle'

by uInterviewJanuary 27, 2012, 12:00 amNews >

Claire Danes, 32, was at Havard University in Cambridge, Mass., on Thursday, where she was honored as the Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ Woman of the Year. “It was totally bizarre — in the best sense,” Danes said, before going on to describe the festivities as a “wackadoodle.”

“I’m learning a lot about Harvard,” Danes, who attended Harvard’s Ivy League rival Yale University, said at a press conference. “I now know you guys are kind of deranged and like to pee on statues.”

Danes, who is married to her Evening co-star Hugh Dancy, was recently awarded her third Golden Globe award for her work on the Showtime drama Homeland, in which she plays a CIA operative battling mental illness. “I first won this award when I was 15 for My So-Called Life, and I was utterly stunned and overwhelmed as one is,” she said during her acceptance speech. “And the first thing I did when I left the stage was burst into tears because I realized that I had forgotten to thank my parents.” Danes also previously won the Globe for her starring role in the made-for-TV movie Temple Grandin.

Hasty Pudding Theatricals bills itself as “the nation’s oldest theater company, which annually puts on a spectacular spring production starring Harvard men in drag,” according to its website. Muppets advocate Jason Segel was named Man of the Year.