Claire Danes - Danes: 'College Made Me A Better Person'

Actress CLAIRE DANES has no regrets about risking her movie career by quitting Hollywood to go to college, insisting she needed the experience to "balance" her life out.

Danes shot to fame at 15 as the star of teen show My So Called Life.

After making the successful transition from small to big screen, with roles in Little Women, U Turn and Romeo and Juliet, the actress walked away from acting in 1998 to enrol at the prestigious Yale University.

Danes made a successful return to acting after graduating, but she insists swapping Hollywood for college was worth the risk, even if the move had backfired.

She tells Moviehole.net, "I stopped acting for three years, and I went to college, which was the right thing for me to do. I think I probably did sacrifice a lot by working so young, but I made up for it later.

"There were parts of me that were really overdeveloped, and other parts that were kind of underdeveloped and I did balance out during that time at school."

And she feels much better equipped to handle Hollywood with a degree under her belt: "I kind of just hung out, and learned how to socialise, made friends outside of the industry, and I kind of defined myself as a person, in a safe place, so I feel quite fortified now."