DANES LEAPS FROM `SO-CALLED' TO SHAKESPEARE.

Byline: Joshua Mooney Entertainment News Wire

As Claire Danes sits down to meet the press, someone hands her a bag of Gummi Bear candies. ``Oh how sweet!'' says the actress, whose nickname, it turns out, is Gummi Bear. But the chewy candy is quickly put aside. Although she's just 17, Danes is all business these days, as well she should be: She's one of the busiest actresses in Hollywood. The fact that her mother sits nearby while Danes does an interview suggests the difficulties inherent in being a star and a kid at the same time. But Danes appears to be getting the hang of it.

Danes sprang to fame at 15 as the star of the TV drama ``My So-Called Life,'' a critically acclaimed series that developed a fervently loyal audience. The series, a realistic and intelligent look at growing up in America, was short-lived. But fans of Danes can take solace in the fact that she's been making movies ever since.

Last month she co-starred in the drama ``To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday,'' the story of a father (Peter Gallagher) and daughter who are having trouble getting over the death of their wife and mother (Michelle Pfeiffer). This month, Danes tackled one of the classic roles of all time, playing Juliet in Baz Luhrmann's bold telling of ``William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet,'' which leapt to No. 1 at the box office its first weekend.

Asked if there's anything about her that might surprise people, Danes pauses for a moment and says, ``I love `teen-age' movies. I've watched `Sixteen Candles' about 20 times. And I love `Footloose.' And I was infatuated with (bawdy English comic) Benny Hill when I was, like, 4.''

These sound like fairly normal teen passions, but maybe Danes is referring to the fact that her own career has been largely free of the kind of ``typical teen'' parts young actors are often limited to. Danes is a fan of Molly Ringwald, but where that teen star of the '80s rose to prominence in comedies like ``Sixteen Candles,'' Danes works almost entirely in the realm of serious drama. She made her film debut in the acclaimed ``Little Women'' and has also co-starred in the coming-of-age drama ``How to Make an American Quilt'' and ``Home for the Holidays,'' a dark comedy about a family in crisis.

As if Shakespeare isn't challenging enough, Danes will next work for heavyweight directors Oliver Stone in ``Stray Dogs,'' and Francis Ford Coppola in ``The Rainmaker.'' Before those films come out, she'll appear in ``Polish Wedding,'' as a daughter whose pregnancy wreaks havoc on her parents, played by Gabriel Byrne and Lena Olin. This kind of work schedule, Danes admits, ``is getting a bit extensive. I'm about to do something I haven't done before - two movies at once. I'll be hopping back and forth between two cities, two directors, two characters ... You should see the calendar on my refrigerator,'' she sighs. ``It's absolutely ridiculous.''

Such are the pressures that come to bear when no less a Hollywood giant than Steven Spielberg singles you out as ``one of the most exciting actresses to debut in 10 years.'' Asked what she makes of that 1995 accolade, Danes says, ``My goodness! I'm not gonna fight it. But I'm not sure I believe it.''

The point, though, is that plenty of people - the ones who make movies - apparently do believe it. Danes has been cited from the beginning for both her professionalism and the intense naturalism she projects on-screen. That's the trick for young actors: coming across as a realistic kid actually requires skill and maturity well beyond your years.

Danes consistently explores emotions in her acting that most kids her age would have trouble confronting, and she seems to enjoy doing it. Playing a daughter whose mother has died in ``To Gillian'' was, Danes says, ``fun.''

``I got to go through the whole gamut of emotions,'' she continues. ``It's easier to get upset about something significant - like your mother dying - as opposed to doing a movie of the week, and you're crying because your shoes don't match your skirt.'' This more typical young-actress fare is clearly not for Danes, who prefers following a darker path. ``What I like is the chance to go to the edge of a cliff and jump off and see where you land. That's just so thrilling. It's a real rush.''

Bold as she may be, Danes is still legally a minor, although she's looking forward to turning 18 soon. During production of ``My So-Called Life,'' she was limited to the short workdays the law requires of child actors. Even now, this veteran of six major films works diligently with a tutor to keep up with her schoolwork.

Danes plans on going to college, inspired by her ``Home for the Holidays'' director Jodie Foster, one of those rare actors who was able to make the difficult transformation from child star to adult star. Foster has always credited her four years at Yale with helping her to make that leap, and Danes agrees. ``School's really important to me,'' she says. ``I just finished my SATs on Saturday. It's all so comical, though - I'm working with Francis Ford Coppola one minute and hanging out with my classmates the next. I sometimes feel like Superman or something. I pop into the telephone booth and put my acting uniform on and fly out.''

For the moment, says Danes, she's managing this difficult balancing act just fine. ``It's a bit of a whirlwind, but I'm handling it; I don't know what's being sacrificed just yet,'' Danes adds insightfully, ``but I wouldn't be acting if I didn't love it and wasn't really proud of the projects I'm involved with.''

Danes was born and raised in New York's hip cultural center, SoHo. Her father is a computer consultant and her mother now works as her manager. She began acting classes at 10, but insists she'd made up her mind about acting well before that. ``I was about 5, and it came out of the blue,'' she says. ``None of my family or friends were involved in the entertainment world at all. They were a little surprised.''

How could she possibly make a career choice at 5? ``It's really difficult to explain,'' Danes admits. ``I'm not a fatalist and I don't really believe in destiny. It's kind of bizarre that I knew so early on.'' Then, of course, there was the Madonna factor. ``I remember I was watching Madonna on the TV screen,'' says Danes, ``and got really excited by the whole idea. I thought, Do I wanna be Madonna? Do I want to be a singer? And I came to the conclusion that no, I wanted to be an actress.''

In all likelihood, lots of young girls have similar thoughts - but far fewer are able to intellectualize those impulses to the extent Danes did. ``When I was about 7, I found out that actresses don't make any money, so I was going to be a therapist and live in L.A. and do acting workshops on the side,'' she says. ``I thought about that pretty seriously for a year, and then I made an announcement: `You know what? Money or no money, I'm gonna be true to myself and my art, and I'm going to go for it.' ''

As articulate as Danes is, she's still a kid and says she's happy to keep being one, despite her position in the grown-up, high-pressure world of moviemaking. ``You have to protect yourself,'' she says. ``You have to make sure you find time to spend with your friends and know that for at least an hour, no one is looking at you. You have to have time to be a kid. I find ways to hang out and be free.''

As Danes stands to go, her mom speaks up to make one small correction: Danes was 9 years old when she made her career pronouncement to her family, not 7. ``Oh,'' Danes says sheepishly. Then she leaves the room and the Gummi Bears behind.

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Photo: Claire Danes on acting: ``What I like is the chance to go to the edge of a cliff and jump off and see where you land. That's just so thrilling. It's a real rush.''