Yet the star of Network Ten’s hit series Homeland admits she’s had to battle with as many insecurities about her body as the rest of us.
Maybe even more when you consider she works in an industry that scrutinises every wrinkle and ounce of extra body fat.
“It’s just so ingrained in us, the idea that we should take up the right amount of space, literally and figuratively,” Claire, 39, tells Allure magazine.
“I’ve wrestled with this my whole life, as just a person in the world and as somebody who make images.”
Claire says it’s only recently since becoming a mum to son Cyrus, two, and marrying his dad actor Hugh Dancy that she’s more at peace.
She’s figured out that it’s okay to want to look and feel your best and it’s okay to work at being attractive.
“Whatever that means to you. And it’s also OK to not expect to be defined by that. It’s OK to be powerful in every way: to be big, to take up space. To breathe and to thrive.”
Once, in an attempt to compliment Claire about her performance in Temple Grandin, her director Mick Jackson told The New Yorker that “there are scenes where she looks like a young Grace Kelly and scenes where she looks like an old horse-faced English duchess.”
But Claire feels unequivocally that looking flawless on screen isn’t the point.
“I’m very vain about my performance but I’m not so worried about being regarded as beautiful when I’m playing a character,” says the actress who consistently has her vulnerability on full display in Homeland.
Off-screen Claire says she still wants to look pretty when she goes out, but not to the point that it consumes her.
“I have plenty of vanity in my life. But it can be this bottomless pit. I know some of the most beautiful women on the planet – unequivocally, objectively friggin’ gorgeous – and they are rife with insecurity and self-doubt, and you just think, ‘Well, how can that be?’
“I’m attractive enough. I can do the work I want to do. I’ve found this wonderful man who wants to make out with me. I’m good.”
