Michelle Pfeiffer in Stardust Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Shortly after her plummet, Yvaine finds herself tethered to Tristan (played by young English actor Charlie Cox) with a long silver chain. Her animosity for him is palpable from the start — but what about Danes and Cox themselves?

"I love Charlie," gushes Danes, putting that to rest. "We got to be really good friends, which was merciful because we were attached to each other for many months. He's such a beautiful actor, he's incredibly open and truthful and funny and intuitive."

For a whimsical fantasy flick led by a relatively unknown director, the supporting cast of Stardust is pretty remarkable. It's made up of character actors, British comedians, and Hollywood legends. Michelle Pfeiffer, as the rapidly aging wicked witch-queen hell-bent on depriving Yvaine of her heart, is also having somewhat of a comeback after several years of being out of the Hollywood limelight.

"I'd worked with Michelle when I was a kid [on To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday] so we already kind of had a sense of each other," Danes says. "But she's obviously alarmingly beautiful. Disarmingly beautiful. And really funny in this. And actually gives a really subversive performance which I don't know if people will expect. And she's really very focused — I think maybe a little perfectionistic."

"Robert De Niro in Stardust Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Robert De Niro also costars as the mustachioed Captain Shakespeare, commander of a sky-sailing ship who while on a lightning-hunting expedition rescues Yvaine and Tristan from the spire of a cloud.

"He plays a cross-dressing sky pirate," chuckles Danes. "He's just so charismatic and so formidable as an actor. I mean the dude knows how to fill a scene."

Director Matthew Vaughn came to the project with a relatively slim resume, having previously helmed only one major feature: 2004's English gangster film Layer Cake. Danes emphasizes that the 36-year-old director is really confident in his approach and describes him as "really stylish."

"[He] knows what constitutes a good movie. I think he did a really fantastic job in making this a coherent movie…It is incredibly impressive that he managed to interweave all the competing story lines so seamlessly," the actress says.