Claire Danes Recalls ‘Meltdown’ After Learning She Was Pregnant with Baby No. 3, Says She Called OBGYN in ‘Convulsive Tears’

NEED TO KNOW

• Claire Danes is opening up about her emotional reaction to finding out she was pregnant with her third baby

• The Beast In Me actress sat down with podcast host Amy Poehler, where she opened up about the “meltdown” she had when she received the news at 44 years old

• Danes shares her three children, two sons and a daughter, with actor husband Hugh Dancy

Claire Danes is recalling her emotional reaction to the news that she was pregnant with her third baby.

The Beast In Me actress, 46, sat down with comedian and podcast host Amy Poehler for the Tuesday, Jan. 27 episode of Good Hang with Amy Poehler, where she opened up about the moment she found out she was expecting at 44 years old. When the Inside Out 2 actress, 54, asked if she “burst into tears” at the thought of having to be pregnant again, Danes quickly responded “totally.”

“I called my OBGYN in convulsive tears. It was a pure like … meltdown,” she shared, noting that each of her children are nearly five years apart. “None of this was by design. I didn’t know it was physically possible. I was 44. And actually, Rowan was very hard-earned. I had to do two rounds of IVF.”

The actress previously spoke on the Smartless podcast with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett and opened up about the emotionally complicated experience of getting pregnant in her mid-40s. Danes shares three children with husband Hugh Dancy: 12-year-old Cyrus, 7-year-old Rowan and a 2-year-old daughter, Shay.

“I was so old when that happened. I was 44,” Danes said, and admitted she “didn’t think it was possible” to get pregnant by that age.

Danes initially felt embarrassed when she learned she was pregnant, partly due to her age (and the stigma surrounding it) and partly since she and Dancy, 50, weren’t trying to have another baby.

“I did not foresee this at all. And it was weird. Suddenly, I felt like a funny shame,” she said. “I was naughty. I had been caught fornicating past the point I was meant to. No, it was weird, and it was like I found an edge that I hadn’t been quite conscious of — like I was going outside of the parameters a little bit.”

Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty

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Danes and Dancy became parents when Cyrus was born in December 2012. Rowan was born five years later, and their daughter was born in July 2023.

“It’s a trip. I mean, I have a teenager and a toddler at once,” Danes said.

Since she’d already had two boys, Danes expected she would be having another boy in her third pregnancy. It was a happy surprise for Danes to learn she’d be welcoming a baby girl, she said.

Danes and Dancy met in 2006 while starring as love interests in Evening. Danes told Marie Claire in 2017 that she and Dancy met in Rhode Island, “when it was at its most audaciously beautiful, in the fall,” and on one particularly idyllic day bicycling with Dancy, she realized she was simply “really just happy” with him. The couple tied the knot in 2009.

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