The 34-year-old actress said there was a time when she started thinking about exploring other options as acting was not working for her.
"I was stuck. It was confusing. I got a lot of plaudits, and it didn't translate into more work. I was really, really struggling during that time," Danes told Vogue in an interview.
"It was grim. I was very hurt. Two years of not working was brutal. And a point came where I thought, 'I really like interior design.'"
The actress has been acting since her early teens and starred with Leonardo DiCaprio in 1996 film "Romeo + Juliet" when she was just 16.
Danes' latest outing as bipolar CIA officer Carrie Mathison in Showtime's Homeland, which premiered in 2011, won her Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in 2012 and 2013.