A year after winning an Emmy for portraying autism self-advocate Temple Grandin on screen, actress Claire Danes says it was hard to move on from the role.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Danes said it took a long time to leave behind the distinctive speech patterns and movements that she worked with a choreographer and a dialogue coach to master for the HBO biopic “Temple Grandin.”

“(Grandin)’s so idiosyncratic. She’s a culture of one so it was not just playing a person but playing a galaxy,” Danes said. “I still sometimes revert to Temple speak. For months after shooting, any impression I did would revert into Temple because I had such strong muscle memory.”

Danes won an Emmy, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild award for her portrayal of Grandin in the film, which premiered in February 2010.

She also won praise from Grandin herself.

“If you left off the title credits, no one would ever know that was Claire Danes,” Grandin told Disability Scoop last year. “That’s how much she became me. It was like a weird time machine.”

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