Claire Danes 'Felt Safe' Kissing Older Jared Leto on My So-Called Life

Claire Danes is seven years younger than her My So-Called Life love interest Jared Leto — yet she handled their romantic scenes with professionalism.

“A little [awkwardness], but it was OK,” Danes, 46, told The Guardian in a Friday, October 31, profile of their onscreen kisses. “I had barely kissed a boy and here I was making out with this Adonis, and I didn’t even know how to interpret the stage directions.”

Danes landed the role of Angela Chase on My So-Called Life when she was just 14 years old. Leto, now 53, was 21 when he was cast as her onscreen crush, Jordan Catalano.

“Like [the script] said I was supposed to kiss his face, and I did not know what that meant,” Danes told the British newspaper. “I didn’t know that there was any other terrain that one could explore.”

She continued, “[Being a teenager] is so Kafka-esque. It’s a really wild ride, and there I was, having a parallel one as a fictional self.”

Despite Danes and Leto’s questionable onscreen age difference, the actress said that she never felt exploited.

“[The crew was] bona fide benevolent grownups, so it was a very solid, sane environment,” Danes said. “That was luck. Not every environment is.”

Danes, however, isn’t sure whether casting actors with the same age gap would yield the same results in today’s film industry.

“I really don’t know. We might, would we not? I honestly don’t know what my moral stance on that is. Maybe because it just was my experience, and I felt safe,” Danes said, explaining how on-set intimacy coordinators have set a new standard for romantic scenes. “How did we not have that before? I’m very for it. But it is funny to be working with an intimacy coordinator for the first time as a 45-year-old. Like, it’s a little late.”

Danes credits her perspective to the adults she looked up to back then.