NEW YORK (AP) — A radiant Claire Danes walked the red carpet for the New York premiere of her new film, “A Kid Like Jake.” She was glowing for a good reason — not just a new movie.
“I’m quite pregnant, but feeling good so far,” Danes told The Associated Press. The actress is in her second trimester. It will be the second child for Danes and husband, Hugh Dancy.
Her co-star, Jim Parsons, was feeling good, too, though he strolled in with a cane and walking cast. It was the result of an onstage accident he sustained during his Broadway play, “The Boys in the Band.”
“I injured it going to curtain call. I don’t have any physical feats in this play that require me to jump or anything like that, I just tripped going down a goddamn stair, and cracked my foot and tore a ligament in my ankle,” Parsons said.
As for the film, Danes and Parsons play the parents of a 4-year old boy named Jake who likes dressing up as a princess. The couple wonders if they should exploit Jake’s gender nonconformity to gain an edge in school applications.
Danes identified with the challenge of finding the right school, because she was experiencing a similar issue while making the film.
“I related immediately to the story,” she said. “When I shot the movie, my son was 4 years old, and I had just gone through that gauntlet of applying to kindergartens here in New York City, which is a unique kind of torture, really.”
While the story deals with the topical discussion of gender identity, it’s told through the lens of parenting, so it could easily apply to other types of family struggles. Danes said it taps into “that anxiety that we parents have that our children might be vulnerable out in the world.”
Parsons agrees: “There’s a big blowout fight scene between the parents that me and Claire play in this. And the thing I’ve heard many, many times is people saying, ‘I’ve had the exact same argument, not about this obviously, but basically the exact same argument.'”
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