I had a bit of a crush on her when I was a teen. I never thought she was especially attractive in the physical sense – I just liked her voice and her mannerisms. I thought she had nice eyes too.
I’d forgotten about her in recent years, but judging by the photos in this thread she looks about the same as I remember her, although like most actresses/models she could probably stand to gain a few pounds.
IMHO: She’s by no means ugly, but there’s nothing particularly special about her looks. So no, I don’t think she’s hot.
Beautiful.
Don’t gain a pound. Don’t change a thing.
The strong facial structure/angles is the key reason I find her beautiful.
She is not the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen but she adds appealing variety to the various types of female beauty in the world.
I wouldn’t kick her out of bed, but I don’t think she’s spectacularly hot either. This pic worries me, though. Is she out for world domination?
I don’t think of her as beautiful, but she does have the distinction of playing several roles (Juliet in Romeo + Juliet, My So Called Life of which I’ve only actually seen 2 eps, ) which I find to be extremely appealing.
She has an extremely well-defined jawline, which tends to be popular among people who admire thinness. Her actual body shape is not spectacularly thin, but her jawline defies this.
I’m a straight woman so I don’t really count. But I’ve always admired her looks. I think she’s gorgeous.
I do strongly think that she made a mistake when she went blonde. That butter-yellow hair all wrong for her. With her clear skin and those huge eyes, I think she looked much better with chestnut or auburn hair.
I’ve never seen why she’s as popular as she is. Not even pretty. Not ugly as such, just not what I would call attractive even. She’s not alone in that department. Others who are at least as unpretty:
Lara Flynn Boyle
Chloe Sevigny
Sandra Bullock
Lili Taylor
Tori Spelling
Clea DuVall
I guess I like looking at a woman from slightly below. 
This shot also struck me as less styled and the “realest” of them.
I think she has an intelligent beauty. She’s of the top 10th percentile, IMO.
Rubystreak, is this just a looks thing? I can’t imagine how anyone could call her “ugly.” She may not be Angelina gorgeous, but she’s certainly no troll.
I think she has a sort of “real life good-looking” to her as opposed to a “Hollywood sexed-out beauty”. Which can be good, and is in this case (though not in that third picture, ugh).
For the record, I had heard her name before but couldn’t have told you a single thing about her other than “she’s famous, I think” - and I am at least reasonably pop-culture-aware.
Claire Danes is gorgeous. Period. Defining her jawline or analyzing her jawbone or shape of her face is silly. Take the whole as a whole, and that is a beautiful woman.
Any of you guys that don’t agree are free to pass her my way. 
My take on the OP photos:
Pretty, but obvious “glamour shot”, with camera too close to her face to get a fair idea of what she looks like overall.
Meh. Nothing special.
Very strong facial bones. Ok if you like that, otherwise nothing special.
Pose actually doesn’t show much besides her face, and I’ve seen that.
B&W photo, highly stylized; too unrepresentative to tell.
While she’s a perfectly ok-looking person, nothing about her strikes me as “hot”.
Hot compared to other professional actresses or hot compared to the girls most people know in real life?
Both. I think she’s neither. I know several women around her age who, in real life, are hotter than Claire Danes appears to me with all her Hollywood advantages in that department. Obviously JMO. I do find her appealing as an actor, just not looks-wise, which is fine, but I was just wondering what, if anything, her phsyical appeal was to men, since maybe I’m missing something. She is dating Billy Crudup IRL, who is extremely hot, and it seemed one of those mismatches, a 6 dating a 9.5.
Nope. No curves. Good actress, not attractive. Looks like a guy in drag. The type homophobic but secretly gay guys go for.
Thanks for posting that, which gives a greater variety of shots, though they all look like they were taken in the last two years or so, since she grew her hair out and dyed it blonde. I guess it’s just a matter of taste, but the new look makes her seem more like a man in drag than ever, to me. Also, having seen her in clothes of her own chosing, I can say she has awful taste in fashion as well. Ah well. No accounting for taste.
What Indygrrl said. She reminds me a bit of Cate Blanchette.
Besides, she was Angela!
It is just a looks thing. I LOVED *My So-Called Life * and pretty much like every movie she’s been in. I think she’s a fantastic actress who has made good choices in films and seems intelligent. I just think she’s ugly; not breaking mirrors with her face or anything, but a little cringe-worthy, esp. in these roles where she’s supposed to be the hot lead female role. Maybe it’s just me, since very few people seem to agree with me about this, which is OK. She might be falling in some blind spot for me.
