Claire Danes realized Harvard was home not just to bookworms but also to drag queens on Thursday during the Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ 2012 Woman of the Year celebration.

“This is so contrary to what we associate with Harvard,” said Danes, who described the experience as “wackadoodle” and “utterly trippy.”

Danes, a versatile actress who has appeared in films like “Romeo + Juliet” and theater productions like “Pygmalion,” was named the Hasty Pudding’s Woman of the Year after winning a 2012 Golden Globe Award for her role on the television series “Homeland.” With that award, Danes now has three Golden Globes, an Emmy, and a Screen Actors Guild Award under her belt, in addition to the Pudding Pot that the Hasty Pudding Theatricals bestowed upon her on Thursday in Farkas Hall.

Danes, a versatile actress who has appeared in films like “Romeo + Juliet” and theater productions like “Pygmalion,” was named the Hasty Pudding’s Woman of the Year after winning a 2012 Golden Globe Award for her role on the television series “Homeland.” With that award, Danes now has three Golden Globes, an Emmy, and a Screen Actors Guild Award under her belt, in addition to the Pudding Pot that the Hasty Pudding Theatricals bestowed upon her on Thursday in Farkas Hall.

But the Hasty Pudding Theatricals did not simply hand over the Pudding Pot to the actress. Danes, a Yale dropout, had to prove herself worthy of the award by completing a series of tasks—including a recital of a faux-Elizabethan monologue about genitals and a dance-off with a virus.

The two emcees, Hasty Pudding Theatricals president James P. Fitzpatrick ’12 and vice president Ryan P. Halprin ’12, were not shy about bashing Harvard’s Connecticut rival during their roast of Danes. Fitzpatrick said that the two years Danes spent at Yale is “a normal amount of time to spend at a community college.”

The emcees demanded that Danes earn her overdue college degree before receiving the award. The first course she had to pass was English.

One member of the Pudding, dressed as Shakespeare, mentioned Danes’ appearance in the play “Vagina Monologues” before asking her to recite a speech like those in that play. After she repeated his poem, which began with “To be or not to be, an angry lesbian,” he declared her a master of the English language.

He said, “English is not the same as math, as you have seen in Romeo plus Juliet,” referring to the 1996 movie in which she played the Shakespearean heroine alongside Leonardo DiCaprio’s Romeo.

In the consequent classes, including biology and computer science, Danes encountered a cow from “Temple Grandin,” her 2010 HBO TV movie, and a virus carrying a dance fever that challenged Danes to a dance-off—all of which were played by Hasty Pudding Theatricals members.

After Danes passed her classes, Yale’s mascot Handsome Dan, played by Matthew J. DaSilva ’12, presented Danes with her degree. When Halprin questioned whether Danes really deserved the diploma, DaSilva said, “Are you kidding me? We let just about anyone get a degree from Yale.”

Prior to the roast, Danes paraded down Massachusetts Avenue alongside the cross-dressed Fitzpatrick and Halprin in a blue Bentley convertible. Spectators lined up on the street to get a glimpse of the actress as she travelled to Farkas Hall to receive her Pudding Pot.

“You should be studying, all of you,” Danes said to the crowd.

As the car made a turn to Holyoke St., three members of the Porcellian Club tossed a stuffed pig out the window of their clubhouse. During a press conference afterward, Danes said that was her favorite part of the day.

“I actually collect stuffed pigs,” she said.

Despite the jabs about her college experience, Danes said she had a great day.

“This experience will remain forever emblazoned in my mind,” Danes said.

In a fall season whose biggest stories have been an expensive dinosaur show and the resurrection of the sitcom, one of the best new shows snuck onto our screens with all the stealth of the espionage world it depicts. Homeland, which premiered last night after Dexter on Showtime, is probably the most serious yet entertaining, subtle yet gut-level entertaining, sly yet not “cool” drama to premiere thus far. As a Showtime series, it’s not a splattery-splashy as Dexter, but… well, thank goodness.
At the center of Homeland’s appeal is the fact that it is at once timely and escapist. The series takes seriously the notion that America is still very much a terrorism target, that the killing of Osama bin Laden may have driven our enemies both deeper underground and into a deeper rage. At the same time, unlike AMC’s admirable but cancelled after a season Rubicon, Homeland doesn’t lock itself away in musty rooms, shuffling papers looking for anagrams of “al Qaeda.” No, when Claire Danes’ CIA agent Carrie Mathison hears that a Marine prisoner of war (Life’s Damian Lewis), held overseas and tortured for eight years, is being released, she leaped out of her office, did an end-run around her superiors (including an excellently restrained Mandy Patinkin as Carrie’s mentor), and bugged the guy’s house. She had a tip that “an American prisoner of war has been turned,” and thinks Lewis’ Sgt. Nicholas Brody may now be that broken traitor in our midst.

We watched as Carrie did, as Brody tries to reinsert himself into the lives of his wife, Jessica (V’s Morena Baccarin), and two children (Morgan Saylor and Jackson Pace). We and Carrie know that Jessica has been having an affair with Brody’s old service buddy; unlike Carrie, we’ll also soon know that Brody prays to Allah. Does a devotion to Islam equal suspicious behavior? Does a nervous tic Brody displays while being filmed for TV betray a code to new masters? Homeland presents Carrie and Brody as equals – you don’t know who’s right or wrong, do you?

Since she became an enduring TV icon (a word I do not to throw around idly) as Angela Chase in My So-Called Life, Claire Danes has spent a lot of time in ensemble-cast movies (from Little Women to The Mod Squad to The Hours), but she still finds her best work in television. Her Temple Grandin, for which she won an Emmy, was a striking example of the way Danes can burrow into a character without giving herself an I’m-glammier-than-the-person-I’m-playing exit strategy. The woman commits.

In Homeland, Danes is an exceptionally committed agent who might qualify to be committed. Her Carrie us a brilliant, rebellious data analyst whose professional standing is compromised by the fact that she’s bipolar. Danes’ performance here is every bit as fully inhabited as her Angela Chase and her Temple Grandin. Lewis is equally good, rendering Brody guarded and shut-down in a manner that nonetheless is exciting to witness. Executive producers Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, who used to help Jack Bauer avert national disasters on 24, now take a more measured, thoughtful look at terrorism. But that doesn’t make what they show us any less frightening, or less exciting as drama.

What did you think of Homeland?

I was checking IMDB for some updates on Homeland and I realized a new project had been added to Claire’s filmography, named As Cool As I Am.

A smart teenage girl comes of age in a small town with her self-centered parents who had her when they were teenagers.

Director: Max Mayer
Writers: Virginia Korus Spragg (screenplay), Pete Fromm (novel)
Stars:Clark Gregg, Claire Danes and James Marsden

This is all the info available so far. The movie is set as filming and to be released in 2012. If I find some more information I will let you guys know.

Also I am sorry for the slow updates, but my real life makes me really busy, specially my job, and it’s hard to run the site alone, since it’s Claire’s most popular and most visited on the web, I will try to keep doing my best though!

Yesterday Claire attended the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, to where she was nominated and once again won for her Temple Grandin role! She won in the category of Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries!

Once again, congratulations to our favorite girl! I will be adding photos as soon as I get home tonight after work!

These have been on our gallery for quite a while now, but I didn’t have the chance to write a post advertising. Claire attended 2nd Annual Afghan Hands And Orlane Fundraiser To Benefit Afghan Hands on last September 30th, and we have photos!

Again sorry for slow updates, but my real life has been busy, still I’ll try to update the site at least every weekend!

Emmy award-winning actress Claire Danes joined millions of people who’ve added their thumbprints to a unique petition at Grand Central Terminal this week, led by global humanitarian organization Save the Children.

The thumbprint mosaic was designed by New York-based artist Ian Wright and represents the support of three million people from 40 countries who have taken part in Save the Children’s EVERY ONE campaign. The campaign aims to put pressure on world leaders meeting at the United Nations in New York, to do more to stop children dying needlessly of preventable and treatable causes.

“Every three seconds in the developing world a child dies needlessly due to lack of basic health care and other things we all take for granted,” said Claire Danes, a Save the Children supporter. “I’m here today to add my thumbprint and my support to this cause, just one of three million people from across the globe – from the poorest communities to world leaders – who have signed up to Save the Children’s EVERY ONE campaign.”

The campaign has also been backed by notable people around the globe such as Hugh Laurie, Kevin McKidd, Sally Field, Mark Ruffalo, Laila Rouas, Amanda Holden, Dame Judi Dench, Annie Lennox and Bollywood stars Kunal Kapoor, Sushmita Sen, Shabana Azmi, Gurinder Chadha, Onir and Amrita Raichand.

The thumbprints will be handed over to a high level representative of the United Nations during the summit this week to review progress on the Millennium Development Goals, the internationally agreed targets to tackle poverty. Save the Children is calling for an action plan to be agreed to by all governments, to reach the Millennium Goal of cutting child deaths by two thirds by 2015. Hitting this target would save the lives of 15 million children by 2015, the charity said. It would involve improving children’s access to basic health care, nutrition, water and sanitation and education.

Around the world, a child dies every 3 seconds from a preventable disease and treatable causes due to lack of basic health care, which is the equivalent of 20 children every New York minute.

On the first day of the United Nations Global Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit, Save the Children and Emmy Award Winning Actress Claire Danes invite New Yorkers to support a major campaign to end child mortality.

From marching in the streets in Bangladesh, to signing up to an online petition in Canada, nearly three million people in over 40 countries have taken an action to support Save the Children. Now, New Yorkers can add their voice and ink their thumbprint on a huge mosaic, created by famed artist Ian Wright, to join the fight to prevent needless deaths of children everywhere.

World leaders arrive in New York City today Monday, September 20th to discuss progress toward the MDGs, established in 2000 with a deadline for completion in 2015. They have a make-or-break opportunity to accelerate progress, and save 15 million children’s lives in the process.

Source

P.S- I’ll add photos from this even tonight, as I’m at work right now and can’t download stuff!

Added 35 pictures, of which 10 are HQ and the other 25 MQ. Enjoy!

Bringing an end to the first day of Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week, a handful of Hollywood hotties gathered together at the Chanel boutique in SoHo on Thursday night (September 9).

The for a store reopening party, beauties such as “Gossip Girl” co-stars Blake Lively and Leighton Meester turned up in support of designer Karl Lagerfeld.

Joining in on the swanky fashion soiree were newly single “Jumper” actress Rachel Bilson, as well as the always-lovely Claire Danes, model Molly Sims and model/DJ Leigh Lezark.

Rounding out the guest list were “Sex and the City” fashionista Sarah Jessica Parker and model Petra Nemcova, along with actresses Diane Kruger, Maggie Grace and Liv Tyler. »