Claire Danes earned a permanent place in many a television viewer’s heart back in 1993 when, at the age of 14, she played Angela Chase on “Wicked” screenwriter (and writer of the stage musical’s book) Winnie Holzman’s short-lived ABC drama “My So-Called Life.” It was rare to see a teenage character portrayed by an actor of the same age (Danes was actually a year younger than the 15-year-old Angela), and what a startling difference it made. Danes effortlessly conveyed the terror and elation of being a high school freshman in America, which meant she could go from heartbreakingly sympathetic to downright irritating on the turn of a dime. Such are teenagers. We were all there once.
Some of us also had the opportunity as teenagers to leave the communities in which we were raised and visit other cultures and countries. In retrospect, these were vital experiences that broadened our understanding of the world and taught us the importance of empathy. This is how we grow and, hopefully, become more enlightened human beings.
It’s one thing to visit another country as an exchange student, and quite another to do so as a burgeoning movie star who’s making a major studio film. So when Claire Danes was jetted off to the Philippines in the late 1990s to shoot Jonathan Kaplan’s “Brokedown Palace” (a riff on Alan Parker’s “Midnight Express”), she was blanketed in privilege; however, given that the film was shot in poverty-stricken areas of the country (which was doubling for Thailand), she was exposed to conditions the likes of which were disconcerting foreign to her.
It had an effect on her. And when she shared her honest reaction to all of it with the U.S. media, she incurred the fury of the Philippines government.