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Drama Actress Roundtable
Cast List Staring
Claire Danes, Mireille Enos, January Jones, Julianna Margulies, Emmy Rossum and Kyra Sedgwick
Joe Pugliese
THERE listens in as the season’s top contenders tackle nudity, bad auditions, breastfeeding on set and the fear of kissing Brad Pitt.
Ask a drama series actress to name the toughest part of her job, and inevitably the conversation turns to motherhood and the pressure of "doing it all." But this year's contenders are candid about much more: nudity, terrible auditions and "inhuman" hours were mentioned by the six women in our Emmy-season kickoff roundtable panel: Claire Danes, 33 (Showtime's Homeland), Mireille Enos, 36 (AMC's The Killing), January Jones, 34 (AMC's Mad Men), Julianna Margulies, 45 (CBS' The Good Wife), Emmy Rossum, 25 (Showtime's Shameless), and Kyra Sedgwick, 46 (TNT's The Closer).♦♦♦♦♦
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: What was your scariest moment ever as an actor?
Julianna Margulies: It was my first equity play at Yale Rep, a play by Maria Irene Fornes called Fefu and Her Friends, sort of a lesbian Big Chill set in the 1930s. My character had a five-minute monologue. It was pretty complicated, but I was cocky about how well I knew it. I got onstage and completely blanked. And I couldn't go. It felt like I was up there for an hour. I died inside.
Emmy Rossum: How did you get through it?
Margulies: Suddenly, one of the lines came to me. Apparently, it happened for 30 seconds. It wasn't an hour and a half.
Kyra Sedgwick: It always feels so much longer.
Rossum: Time slows and you feel like, "Oh God, now I can hear them all breathing!"
Claire Danes: I've had more limited experience with theater, but I did Pygmalion a few years ago and lost my voice on a matinee show. That was terrifying. There's nothing scarier than when you're live.
Rossum: I did Romeo and Juliet at Williamstown. You only do it for like 10 days, so every performance feels so precious. And in the second show at the top of Act Two was Juliet's "gallup apace" speech, with a light just on me, and I'm quaking nervous. I start to deliver the speech, and there's a woman in the second row who stands up and starts to recite it with me.
Sedgwick: Oh, my God!
Rossum: Well, it was good because she was like my Teleprompter. She knew it better than I did.
Margulies: You were being heckled, but by a Shakespearean actor.
Rossum: Yeah, exactly! (Laughter.)
Sedgwick: I have a moment that just leaped to mind. I auditioned for Flashdance a million years ago, and my agent told me I was supposed to wear a leotard, heels and no tights. I had such bigger balls back in those days. I thought, "I'm not wearing a leotard. Instead, I'll wear a little miniskirt and high heels." In the middle of my audition, [director] Adrian Lyne's phone rang and he picked it up. I turned to him and said, "You're not going to answer that phone call. I'm auditioning for you."
Margulies: Good for you!
Sedgwick: But today, I don't think I would ever do that!
January Jones: That just reminded me of one of the worst moments in my entire life. It was an audition for Coyote Ugly, my second audition ever. I'd done the reading for the acting part and then Jerry Bruckheimer wanted me to come in and dance … on top of the table.
Margulies: You mean just regular dance?
Jones: Yes. They said, "You're going to dance to Prince's 'Kiss.' You're going to pole dance, but there is no pole." (Laughter.) And I just turned beet red. It was awful, and he said something like, "Honey, you did a great reading, but you've got no rhythm." (Laughter.) I called my agent and said, "I don't want to do this anymore."
THR: Have you seen Bruckheimer since then and recounted this story?
Jones: Oh, he has no recollection of it.
Sedgwick: Of course not. He's said that to so many girls.
Mireille Enos: Is it wrong to admit that having to kiss Brad Pitt was very, very terrifying? It was on World War Z, which I shot last summer and it was the second day of shooting.
Rossum: I feel like that would be the best day. (Laughter.)
Enos: But it's scary, it's Brad! He's totally great, by the way. I mean, it was fine, but the anticipation was terrible.
THR: Getting back to forgetting your lines, how do you prepare for scenes now that's different from when you started acting?
Danes: When I started Homeland, it had been God knows how long since I'd last done an episodic show. I was 14, 15 when I did My So-Called Life. And Homeland is just so dense. The volume of material that you have to commit to memory is overwhelming. So I did develop a strategy, and I realized I just had to become familiar and intimate with the script as soon as it landed in my lap.
Rossum: You're shooting 11 pages a day.
Danes: Yeah, and there's a lot of CIA speak I had to become fluent in. That took a while.
Jones: When Mad Men started, my character had a bunch of monologues because she was in therapy, but the therapist never spoke. I had never done television before, and we get the script a day before we shoot. I had no exercise to try to help me with that. So I recorded myself saying stuff and then listened to it while I slept, hoping that it would stick like a bad song. And it worked!
Sedgwick: I've had so much dialogue and it's dense! I also had somebody helping me every single day. There wasn't a minute that I didn't have the script or the tape recorder in my hand.
Danes: After a while, it got really fun. I would read lines with my husband [actor Hugh Dancy] on the train -- we have a country house, and we'd take the Amtrak back to the city -- and he was like, "How did you do that?" I was so pleased with myself. I had never felt that formidable.
Margulies: I have an aid for all of you. It's called Rehearsal 2, and it's on the iPad. You highlight your lines with your fingers, or black out your lines to see the other person's lines. You can also record their lines and leave space for yours.
Enos: That's awesome.
Margulies: Unlike these lovely ladies, I shoot 23 episodes a year, and it's all legal dialogue. It's so inhuman what they want you to do. Rita Wilson, who was a guest star on our show, saw me just … I was sweating bullets all the time. She's like, "Honey, Rehearsal 2." (Laughter.) And it's changed my life!
Sedgwick: You need someone to help you!
Margulies: Well, I do, but I'll learn lines at 11 o'clock at night and then I show up at 7 in the morning and they've changed again.
Rossum: What's scary about my show is that our showrunner, John Wells, doesn't believe in sides [the specific pages from the script in which an actor's character appears].
Danes: Why?
Rossum: Because it's like hazing for the actors.
Margulies: We ruined it for her on [Wells'] ER. (Laughter.)
Rossum: Thanks for that.
Margulies: I'm sorry!
Rossum: There are no scripts allowed on set. If you don't know every single line of dialogue, you'd better not walk onto that soundstage.
Sedgwick: How did you do that on ER?
Margulies: We didn't, we had sides. I think not having them is a horrible thing to do to an actor. Things change in the moment.
Rossum: There's so much choreography on my show -- the kitchen, the pots and the pans, the kids and this and that. So not having scripts actually helps. But the first day I walked on set and there were no sides, it was like, "Ha-ha. I hope you're ready!"
THR: Mireille, what's your process on The Killing?
Enos: Just shove it in and show up. When I started season one, my daughter was seven weeks old. I was nursing and had her in the trailer with me all the time. I've always been overly studious, but there's no time, there's no energy, you just do what you can do. People have asked me over and over, "How is working different now that you're a mom?" I don't know how to answer the question because the things were so inextricable. Four in the morning, breastfeeding with a script! Luckily, my character, Sarah, doesn't talk that much. (Laughter.)
THR: On that topic, what are the biggest personal sacrifices you've made for your career?
Sedgwick: That's such a very personal and difficult answer.
Danes: Being away from home, being away from my friends. I'm so lucky, I live in the same neighborhood in New York in which I was raised, and I'm so spoiled in that respect.
Margulies: Two blocks from me!
Danes: Yeah. I'm just always missing somebody. But the joy of this job too is that it slings us around and we form attachments to these people who we wouldn't normally get to meet.
Enos: We're so lucky. But you can never plan your life. My sister will say, "OK, so we're all getting together. Will you be there?" And I'll say, "Ask me two days before." You just never know.
Margulies: I started The Good Wife when my son, Kiernan, was 13 months old, so it was easy to cart him around. But now he's 4, so try and be a good parent and also be good at your job; it's constant anxiety.
Sedgwick: You miss stuff. There's no way around it, you just do. And that doesn't feel good.
Margulies: But also don't you think it's awful that, "Well, you never know when this job's going to end and then when am I going to work again, so I may as well enjoy it?"
Enos: When I'm having a hard day on the set and want to be with my daughter, people say, "It's so much harder on us than on them." I'm like, "You know, I don't know if that's true."
Jones: I started this season of Mad Men eight months pregnant, and I finished it with a 5-month-old. It was bizarre. And I was in seven hours of prosthetics every morning, trying to rip off a fake chest piece so I could breastfeed.
THR: Yes, let's talk about that now. (Laughter.)
Jones: Oh, my gosh.
THR: What was the conversation like when Matt Weiner said, "OK, this is my idea: We put Betty in a fat suit"?
Jones: I loved it. I didn't want to try to hide it, I thought it would become comical and weird. And I also didn't want to have the character become pregnant because it just wouldn't make sense. It was definitely difficult, but I love what he did with the character's story.
Margulies: It was awesome. So brave and great.
THR: Did you see the fat-suit episode before it aired?
Jones: I didn't. I saw it on the air, paused it and went screaming into the other room.(Laughter.) I got used to it.
THR: Speaking of body image, Emmy, you've done quite a bit of nudity on your show. How did you decide that it was OK?
Rossum: I thought it suited the character. This is a very low-income family, they have very thin walls, they don't have money for entertainment, and this girl likes to have sex. For me to glamify her would be not realistic. I have a lot of control over what I want to show, when I want to show it and when I don't want to show it.
THR: Are you in a constant negotiation with John Wells about this stuff?
Rossum: Not at all. But originally, when they made the contract it was like, "You will show partial side boob, you will show two cheeks …"
Margulies: Those contracts are always so funny.
Rossum: When I got on set -- I'd never done nudity before -- I was like, "Oh, everyone here is human." Some days you feel like, "Oh, God. I wish we were shooting this last week, I felt so skinny." So you get comfortable, and your crew is your family. At this point, the camera guy is like, "Oh, God, not again."
Margulies: Believe me, they're not thinking that. (Laughter.)
Sedgwick: I've been naked in some movies. I mean, it's awful. Come on! But like Emmy said, I think that if it's right for the character and the moment, it feels more right than not doing it.
Danes: I don't love stripping down, but I also don't love the idea of being kind of coy or prudish for the sake of it.
THR: On another topic, what's the strangest or most interesting fan interaction you've ever had?
Enos: Last season, there was an episode where my son goes missing, and it was the most cracked-open Sarah has been. A couple of days after that episode aired, I was in my grocery store and an ex-hippie grandma walked over and gave me a hug.
Margulies: People also forget that you're playing a part. They'll be like, "Oh, my God, so when Alicia went and told Peter that," they think they're telling you something about your character. "I really think you should stay with Peter; he's really good for the kids." You know, they're not my kids. (Laughter.) That's not my life!
Danes: I haven't had many odd encounters with fans, but I saw a psychic recently in New York. When she was starting to read me, it became clear that she was reading my character. She said, "I have this problem all the time. Soap actors are the worst." (Laughter.)
Rossum: When we shoot in Chicago, there are women who come up to me like, "You take such good care of those kids, and you keep doing what you're doing." I'm like, "Thank you." And then there are some little boys who probably shouldn't be watching Showtime at night who are like, "Fiona!!!" (Laughter.)
THR: Who's been the most helpful or most formative in helping you make decisions about your career?
Sedgwick: For me, it's my husband [actor Kevin Bacon]. He was the one who supported my doing The Closer. It was a huge commitment and life-changing thing for both of us. We always read each other's scripts; he often follows my advice, and sometimes I'm wrong, but he's not. (Laughter.) And I'm so grateful we have that, I really am. I trust my agents to a certain extent, but that can be a little tricky. You need to have your own instincts.
Danes: I met my manager, Michael Aglion, when I was 14 and did a short film and he was the producer. In college, I would call him before I wrote a paper to just brainstorm, and I realized that there are very few people I could collaborate this freely with. I asked, "Do you want to be my manager?" and ever since then we've had a very unorthodox style of working together. We're about to start filming the next season of Homeland -- a lot of it takes place in Lebanon -- so he put together a little syllabus for me and a tutorial on the Middle East. I'm really, really indebted to him for that.
Margulies: I think it would be my dad. He loves theater and saw me at Yale Rep or in Florida doing regional theater. His line was always, "Don't do crap." I've had to pay the mortgage a couple of times with some crap, but it was always fun, kitschy crap, and those were the movies I begged him not to see.
Enos: For me, the seed of all of it was planted by my mom, who wanted desperately to be a ballerina but was not allowed to dance. She swore whatever her kids wanted to do, she would bend over backward, up all night with me working monologues. This season, she came out to stay with the baby when my husband was going to be away. She'd send me update e-mails throughout the day, "These are the games we're playing!" And at the bottom she would say, "And, of course, you are doing a beautiful job."
Rossum: Family is really important for that. To know that no matter whether this movie or this TV show sucks, or you blow this character or whatever, [your family knows] that you're giving 150 percent and doing your absolute best to make it great. Knowing that is a really good feeling.
Jones: My family has always said, "Just in case, you can always come back and live at home." (Laughter.) It was very sweet, but it's almost like a threat. I will make this work! But they are very supportive and always 100 percent behind me, no matter what it is. Even if it has been a crap piece of work, they will find …
Margulies: They'll find the beauty.
Jones: Yes, the Pollyanna in them is amazing. "You know, the sets were great! You can't dull your shining light!" But I'm very instinctual about my process and about when I first read something and how I feel. If I get excited or nervous, it's usually a good sign, and then if I need a second opinion, I usually go to my sister. She has the same thought process as I do, that's why I like it.
Danes: I was going to say my husband, too. He's a big, big influence. A good litmus test.
Margulies: In what we do with episodic work, it's a nonstop train. I mean, there are days when, I was saying this to Kyra before, I had worked until midnight and then I had to go and shoot something else at five in the morning. I looked at my husband and I was like, "This is why Judy Garland was on pills." I can't keep this up. I need a pill!
Danes: Green tea is not going to do it. (Laughter.)
Margulies: There's only so much green tea I can drink. And you want to be kind and generous to people and be a good example, but you're also performing. They want you to look a certain way but expect you to work 16 hours a day. You start to unravel. You need that voice saying, "Baby, you're going to do it. You're OK." I always say to actors who ask me for advice, "Pick the right partner." No matter how hard my day is, I can't wait to get home and I know I'll be safe. You need the right person to hold your hand through it.
Enos: I think that's the key to doing your best work -- keeping it all in perspective.
THR: What's the biggest dispute you've had on your show?
Margulies: As much as I'd like to pretend it's an ensemble, it's not. It's The Good Wife, and if the good wife goes down, there's no show! (Laughter.) My problem is, I'm not a squeaky wheel. I'm a worker; I can wait tables. So I have this idea that I'm one of the crew. But I have to be there two hours before the crew gets there and then work two hours when everyone goes home.
Sedgwick: And be in front of the camera and look good.
Margulies: Yes. So my biggest challenge has been to say, "Guys, guess what? I can't be in the background of so-and-so's scene." That would give me two hours with my kid. Or, how about an hour to sleep, go to the gym. Or learn a line or two. I have to prepare and have a life. Sitting in a court scene for 14 hours without a line … is craziness. So they're going to work on that.
THR: Have your Good Wife showrunners, Robert and Michelle King, been receptive?
Margulies: They're incredibly receptive. At one point this year, I was in all these court scenes and I hadn't gotten the next script. I looked at the schedule and I was in every single scene. It was 11 o'clock at night and I just e-mailed everyone and I said, "How about we call an insurance day because … this is inhuman." And then Robert was like, "We're going to write you out of this scene and that."
Danes: It is hugely about communication. I think they just don't know.
Sedgwick: And if you keep doing it, then they start thinking, "Oh, you can do it, and it's easy."
Enos: That's right.
Danes: But you have to recognize what a valuable challenge is. You're indulging your neurosis about being a "good girl" or something.
Margulies: I think that's exactly it. And I hate to say it turns into a [gender] issue, but being a female …
Sedgwick: Do it! I'm right there with you, girl.
Margulies: Do you know what I mean though? Being female and asking for what you need.
Danes: We are very accommodating, typically.
Margulies: Because we don't want to be thought of as bitches or as incapable. "No I can do this! I can be a mother!" Then you show up and you start to …
Sedgwick: Unravel.
Danes: And they're not doing it to punish you, they're doing it out of ignorance. You need to make a case. "If you give me this extra time, I will perform that much better when you really need me."
Margulies: I think television writers have the hardest job in the business.
THR: Each season, writers give certain actors more or less screen time. Do you make suggestions to them on how to use you?
Jones: We don't ask Matt for anything. He's extremely good at what he does, and it would be foolish of me to suggest anything. This season, I was lucky to be in four episodes because I was happy that he wrote a storyline for my character where I didn't need to be there every day. I was struggling as a single mom with a new baby; I didn't know what I was doing. He likes to give everyone sort of an arc, and you might not be there. He also likes to mess with the audience a bit. There's only been one time where I've ever questioned anything he's ever done.
THR: When was that?
Jones: Betty, at the end of season two, goes to a bar and winds up sleeping with a random guy. I didn't disagree with it; I just wanted to understand the motivation. Is it revenge? And he explained to me that I needed to stop thinking. Betty is a sexual person -- she gets drunk and she gets laid. That's it. When it was explained that way, I was like, "OK." That's one of the beautiful things about Mad Men; we're not given any time to think.
THR: Kyra, The Closer is wrapping up this summer. What are you most looking forward to in this next phase of your career?
Sedgwick: I really want to do more films. I would like to do other characters for a shorter amount of time. But the TV experience was amazing, and it afforded me the experience of delving into a character and growing with her. There's no other venue that you can experience that as an actor. It's deep and cathartic. But I would like to do shorter runs and do a play if the right one came along.
Claire Danes: There are so many different ways to get naked! (Laughter.)
♦♦♦♦♦
ROUNDTABLE SERIES
Now in its sixth year, The Hollywood Reporter’s Emmy Season Roundtable Series has emerged as the television industry’s premier showcase for no-holds-barred discussions with the town’s top talent. An offshoot of THR’s popular Oscar series, the Emmy roundtables also have become predictors of academy winners. In fact, 23 of last year’s roundtable participants received Emmy nominations for acting, writing, producing and hosting television’s top series.
Upcoming Roundtables
Check out THR throughout Emmy season for exclusive panels with drama showrunners, comedy showrunners, drama actors, comedy actors, comedy actresses, reality talent and executives.
Claire Danes, Mandy Patinkin, Damian Lewis and the creators of the era-defining Showtime drama — now entering its eighth and final season — reveal in The Hollywood Reporter’s oral history never-told tales of a show that smashed records, captivated presidents and predicted everything from terrorist attacks to Russian election cyber-attacks.
"What keeps you up at night?" That's the question Homeland showrunner Alex Gansa annually posed to Washington insiders before putting fingers to keyboard on a season of his Emmy-winning Showtime drama.
What began as a slick spy thriller driven by a potent sexual chemistry, courtesy of leads Claire Danes and Damian Lewis, evolved into an exposé on the greatest dangers to an America that finally had some distance from 9/11. Threats from ISIS, the surveillance state and Russian interference punctuated clandestine meetings with the intelligence community — part of a yearly writers and cast symposium in D.C. affectionately dubbed "Spy Camp."
The series, loosely developed from an Israeli format by Gansa and longtime collaborator Howard Gordon (24), became an instant and bona fide success when it premiered in 2011 to 2.8 million viewers and unanimous critical acclaim. Boasting a murderers' row of writers, each a showrunner at one time, the drama catapulted Showtime and studio Fox 21 to an echelon of prestige TV they previously couldn't reach. It swept its first Emmys (with six awards total) and those first seasons had both the Obamas and Clintons soliciting screeners.
Watch
Claire Danes Reflects on 'Homeland', 'My So-Called Life' Memories, Mental Illness On-Screen | Fishing for Answers
In Hollywood, efforts to capitalize on its early success were dubbed "the Homeland effect."
And despite years of would-be copycats following suit on broadcast and
cable, few captured even a sliver of zeitgeist or lasted more than a
single season. Indeed, Homeland briefly seized the industry's and viewers' attention in a way that only Game of Thrones has since — a feat that now seems virtually impossible in an era with nearly 500 scripted U.S. series airing each year.
As the drama is set to premiere its eighth and final season Feb. 9, Gansa, Gordon, Danes and those closest to the series look back on the show's legacy and reveal previously untold stories behind their landmark hit — including the battles to hire (then let go of) Lewis, a secret call with Edward Snowden, how the 2015 Paris attacks forced everyone to reassess the series' portrayal of the Muslim world and why the last batch of episodes, where Danes' character is now suspected of being a double agent, echoes the first.
As the drama is set to premiere its eighth and final season Feb. 9, Gansa, Gordon, Danes and those closest to the series look back on the show's legacy and reveal previously untold stories behind their landmark hit — including the battles to hire (then let go of) Lewis, a secret call with Edward Snowden, how the 2015 Paris attacks forced everyone to reassess the series' portrayal of the Muslim world and why the last batch of episodes, where Danes' character is now suspected of being a double agent, echoes the first.
Photographed by David Needleman
Claire Danes was photographed Nov. 20 at Milk Studios in New York City.
______________________________
PART I: Former writing partners Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon, reunited on the last seasons of Fox's 24, option an Israeli format about two freed prisoners of war and recast it as an exploration of America's place in the world a decade after 9/11.
ALEX GANSA (CO-CREATOR, SHOWRUNNER) This was unfinished business. Howard and I had always wanted to do our own show.
HOWARD GORDON (CO-CREATOR) We split up as writing partners in our 20s, during the first season of The X-Files. We stayed friends, but we just weren't seeing a lot of each other.
GANSA And 15 years later, I was on a train on my way out of the business. Howard rescued me from literal poverty and let me come on 24 for the last two years.
GORDON In the middle of the last season, [agent] Rick Rosen, who represents [Israeli studio] Keshet, came back from a trip to Israel, calls me and says, "I have your next show."
RICK ROSEN (AGENT) I'd gone to lunch with Avi Nir, the chairman of Keshet, and he says to me, "This writer, Gideon Raff, pitched me this show called Hatufim" — which translates to Prisoners of War. He asked, "Do you think that type of show would work in the States?" I said, "Absolutely, and I have the writer."
GORDON It hadn't been shot. It had only been written, so we had 10 episodes translated to English. [20th Century] Fox agreed to buy the underlying property, so we could adapt it. In Hatufim, there was no Carrie, no Saul. It was really about two soldiers.
DANA WALDEN (THEN-CHAIRMAN OF 20TH CENTURY FOX TV) Alex and Howard became taken with this idea of what happens if a prisoner of war has turned.
GANSA We completely devoted ourselves to writing the pilot for six months. But this was almost 10 years after 9/11, so there was a fear among everybody — the studio, the writers, the agencies — that no one would be interested in this story. And Dana didn't want another 24.
GORDON But she really wanted it to go to Fox.
ALEX GANSA (CO-CREATOR, SHOWRUNNER) This was unfinished business. Howard and I had always wanted to do our own show.
HOWARD GORDON (CO-CREATOR) We split up as writing partners in our 20s, during the first season of The X-Files. We stayed friends, but we just weren't seeing a lot of each other.
GANSA And 15 years later, I was on a train on my way out of the business. Howard rescued me from literal poverty and let me come on 24 for the last two years.
GORDON In the middle of the last season, [agent] Rick Rosen, who represents [Israeli studio] Keshet, came back from a trip to Israel, calls me and says, "I have your next show."
RICK ROSEN (AGENT) I'd gone to lunch with Avi Nir, the chairman of Keshet, and he says to me, "This writer, Gideon Raff, pitched me this show called Hatufim" — which translates to Prisoners of War. He asked, "Do you think that type of show would work in the States?" I said, "Absolutely, and I have the writer."
GORDON It hadn't been shot. It had only been written, so we had 10 episodes translated to English. [20th Century] Fox agreed to buy the underlying property, so we could adapt it. In Hatufim, there was no Carrie, no Saul. It was really about two soldiers.
DANA WALDEN (THEN-CHAIRMAN OF 20TH CENTURY FOX TV) Alex and Howard became taken with this idea of what happens if a prisoner of war has turned.
GANSA We completely devoted ourselves to writing the pilot for six months. But this was almost 10 years after 9/11, so there was a fear among everybody — the studio, the writers, the agencies — that no one would be interested in this story. And Dana didn't want another 24.
GORDON But she really wanted it to go to Fox.
Photographed by Joe Pugliese
Photographed by David Needleman
"You didn't want to stop and
think too much about the math of how old she was on 9/11 [22], but you
also don't question the range of Claire Danes, so that was not a hard
call," said David Nevins.
___________________________
ROSEN Kevin [Reilly], who was running Fox at the
time, walks in with the script in his hand and just tosses it on the
conference table and goes, "I have no notes. It's kind of perfect.
However, if you're going to do this here, you really need to pump up the
volume on this show." And the guys basically said, "We did that show,
and we're not doing that show again."
WALDEN We had imagined a smooth path onto the air at [Fox], so Kevin passing was a bit of a setback. But there were so many choices for viewers, even then, that asking audiences to make a weekly serialized commitment on broadcast was getting harder and harder. NBC passed for similar reasons.
GORDON And then FX passed. They thought Damages had been problematic because it was a serialized, but David Nevins had just started at Showtime.
DAVID NEVINS (THEN-PRESIDENT OF ENTERTAINMENT AT SHOWTIME) The first couple days on the job, Rick slipped the script to me.
ROSEN That was on a Friday. On Saturday, David is on the phone saying to me, "If you give me this show, I'll order it to pilot right now." I said, "How can you do that? Have you already spoken to Les [Moonves]?" He said, "I have Les' backing. I'm ordering it."
BERT SALKE (PRESIDENT, FOX 21 TELEVISION STUDIOS) David was really aggressive and went for it in a way I don't think anyone had ever seen him do before.
GARY LEVINE (THEN-EXEC VP ORIGINAL PROGRAMMING AT SHOWTIME) He was rabid for it.
NEVINS I had to sell Dana and [then-partner] Gary [Newman], so my pitch from the beginning was we'd get it on the air for the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and Dexter, our No. 1 show at the time, would be its lead-in. But I had one big note: Carrie Mathison felt too Jack Bauer. We discussed how we were going to make her a more complicated, less reliable character.
GANSA Carrie wasn't bipolar in that draft.
NEVINS It's not that I didn't want to make her reliable to the audience. I wanted to make her less reliable to the authorities.
LEVINE Our job was to make it belong on premium cable. Having just come off of 24, their spec — which was great — had a lot of plot twists. We needed the character turns to be as surprising as the plot.
GANSA They did an amazing job pushing us to make this character more vivid, but they were also attached to their model of casting movie stars who were on the tail end of their career.
NEVINS It'd be impolitic to mention names.
GANSA They were pushing for Robin Wright or Halle Berry or Maria Bello, who were all already in their 40s.
SALKE Halle Berry was the big deal, and a lot of that was being driven by the network.
GANSA By the time you're in your mid-40s and you've got bipolar illness for that long, everything is calcified.
ROSEN I'd been looking for a project for Claire Danes in television for a while.
CLAIRE DANES (CARRIE MATHISON) I had just done [HBO's Emmy-winning miniseries] Temple Grandin, and I felt charged up to do something similarly thrilling and scary. There just wasn't much available.
WALDEN We had imagined a smooth path onto the air at [Fox], so Kevin passing was a bit of a setback. But there were so many choices for viewers, even then, that asking audiences to make a weekly serialized commitment on broadcast was getting harder and harder. NBC passed for similar reasons.
GORDON And then FX passed. They thought Damages had been problematic because it was a serialized, but David Nevins had just started at Showtime.
DAVID NEVINS (THEN-PRESIDENT OF ENTERTAINMENT AT SHOWTIME) The first couple days on the job, Rick slipped the script to me.
ROSEN That was on a Friday. On Saturday, David is on the phone saying to me, "If you give me this show, I'll order it to pilot right now." I said, "How can you do that? Have you already spoken to Les [Moonves]?" He said, "I have Les' backing. I'm ordering it."
BERT SALKE (PRESIDENT, FOX 21 TELEVISION STUDIOS) David was really aggressive and went for it in a way I don't think anyone had ever seen him do before.
GARY LEVINE (THEN-EXEC VP ORIGINAL PROGRAMMING AT SHOWTIME) He was rabid for it.
NEVINS I had to sell Dana and [then-partner] Gary [Newman], so my pitch from the beginning was we'd get it on the air for the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and Dexter, our No. 1 show at the time, would be its lead-in. But I had one big note: Carrie Mathison felt too Jack Bauer. We discussed how we were going to make her a more complicated, less reliable character.
GANSA Carrie wasn't bipolar in that draft.
NEVINS It's not that I didn't want to make her reliable to the audience. I wanted to make her less reliable to the authorities.
LEVINE Our job was to make it belong on premium cable. Having just come off of 24, their spec — which was great — had a lot of plot twists. We needed the character turns to be as surprising as the plot.
GANSA They did an amazing job pushing us to make this character more vivid, but they were also attached to their model of casting movie stars who were on the tail end of their career.
NEVINS It'd be impolitic to mention names.
GANSA They were pushing for Robin Wright or Halle Berry or Maria Bello, who were all already in their 40s.
SALKE Halle Berry was the big deal, and a lot of that was being driven by the network.
GANSA By the time you're in your mid-40s and you've got bipolar illness for that long, everything is calcified.
ROSEN I'd been looking for a project for Claire Danes in television for a while.
CLAIRE DANES (CARRIE MATHISON) I had just done [HBO's Emmy-winning miniseries] Temple Grandin, and I felt charged up to do something similarly thrilling and scary. There just wasn't much available.
Photographed by David Needleman
"I had just done [HBO's Emmy-winning miniseries] Temple Grandin, and I felt charged up to do something similarly thrilling and scary," Danes said.
______________________________
GORDON And we had called the character Claire in the first 16 drafts.
DANES I still don't quite know how to take that.
GANSA I had seen Sunday in the Park With George in the '80s with Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin, and it changed my life. But Mandy had such a sterling reputation …
LEVINE Mandy had balked at every other show he's ever been on. If he had a long-term contract, he would get antsy and bail — including on one of ours, Dead Like Me.
MANDY PATINKIN (SAUL BERENSON) I thought they were all crazy to hire me, given my track record. I never thought I'd work in television again after my last experience [on Criminal Minds]. [Disturbed by the CBS show's content, he went AWOL after its second season.]
SALKE He's a beautiful soul. But, yes, I personally got a number of very firm calls asking, "Do you know what you're getting into?"
LEVINE We wanted him in the role, so we decided not to offer him a long-term contract, just a two-year deal in hopes that he would love it enough to keep re-upping.
PATINKIN They offered me a one-year contract. It's the only way I'd do it. But from day one, I'd never been happier on a film or television job — except maybe The Princess Bride.
DANES When Mandy and I did the read-through for the pilot, the chemistry was so strong, so immediate, I was really startled by it. He also bears an uncanny resemblance to my best friend's dad.
GANSA There was the Claire battle, the Mandy battle and then the Damian Lewis battle. There was tremendous resistance to casting him as Brody.
Photographed by David Needleman
"I'd been looking for a project for Claire Danes in television for a while," said agent Rick Rosen.
________________________________
SALKE Alex initially pushed for Damian, but people didn't see it. Life, on NBC, had just finished. It wasn't everyone's favorite show.
DAMIAN LEWIS (NICHOLAS BRODY) Life was terrific, but it was kiboshed by the writers strike. After that, I was told I looked like a guy who'd led a show that only lasted two seasons.
DANES They were thinking of somebody else who I didn't think was right for it.
GANSA Ryan Phillippe came up. Also Kyle Chandler …
GORDON Then I flew to New York on a red-eye to meet Alessandro Nivola [A Most Violent Year], who famously said no to everything. He turned down Dexter.
GANSA Howard failed that mission [with Nivola], so we were three weeks away from shooting the pilot, and we did not have a Brody yet — and we're still in the "Damian Lewis will never play this role, please do not bring him up ever again" phase.
NEVINS I didn't really know Damian.
GANSA Then I remembered [pilot director] Michael Cuesta had told me to watch this movie Damian did called Keane.
LEWIS About five people saw it, but it was the best reviewed movie I've ever been in.
GORDON Alex called me at 10:30 that night and told me I had to watch it. I was blown away.
GANSA The next morning we sent it to all the people who said, "This guy is a dead issue," and, to their credit, they watched it and said, "This is the guy." Also, we had nobody else …
DAMIAN LEWIS (NICHOLAS BRODY) Life was terrific, but it was kiboshed by the writers strike. After that, I was told I looked like a guy who'd led a show that only lasted two seasons.
DANES They were thinking of somebody else who I didn't think was right for it.
GANSA Ryan Phillippe came up. Also Kyle Chandler …
GORDON Then I flew to New York on a red-eye to meet Alessandro Nivola [A Most Violent Year], who famously said no to everything. He turned down Dexter.
GANSA Howard failed that mission [with Nivola], so we were three weeks away from shooting the pilot, and we did not have a Brody yet — and we're still in the "Damian Lewis will never play this role, please do not bring him up ever again" phase.
NEVINS I didn't really know Damian.
GANSA Then I remembered [pilot director] Michael Cuesta had told me to watch this movie Damian did called Keane.
LEWIS About five people saw it, but it was the best reviewed movie I've ever been in.
GORDON Alex called me at 10:30 that night and told me I had to watch it. I was blown away.
GANSA The next morning we sent it to all the people who said, "This guy is a dead issue," and, to their credit, they watched it and said, "This is the guy." Also, we had nobody else …
Photographed by David Needleman
"I'm watching Claire and Mandy
in their very first scene together on the monitor — wondering if we're
going to believe this mentor/protege relationship or even buy them as
CIA officers. Within the first 20 seconds, I knew we had a show," said Homeland co-creator and showrunner Alex Gansa.
______________________________
MICHAEL CUESTA (DIRECTOR-PRODUCER) I came on board
to direct the pilot when Ben Affleck fell out. The shoot in Charlotte
went smoothly, but for the part in Israel I'd scouted Barta'a on the
West Bank for this big traffic jam [scene]. We closed the street and
apparently paid off merchants on the wrong side of the street. Fights
broke out. People picked up rocks. We got the hell out.
GANSA You start a pilot not knowing whether you have a show or not. But on the second or third day, it's freezing cold and I'm watching Claire and Mandy in their very first scene together on the monitor — wondering if we're going to believe this mentor/protege relationship or even buy them as CIA officers. Within the first 20 seconds, I knew we had a show.
CUESTA Then Osama bin Laden was killed, and it was clear we were getting a series pickup.
PART II: Homeland marks Showtime's most watched premiere in nearly a decade with 2.8 million viewers. A hit in Hollywood and Washington, it's suddenly the most talked-about show in America, but the battle over what to do with Lewis' character casts a pall over the second and third seasons.
NEVINS It was a very well-made pilot, but I didn't have much expectation other than knowing the show was good.
MEREDITH STIEHM (WRITER) They did not have a female writer, so I came on after the fourth episode. It was just Alex, Howard, Chip Johannessen [Dexter], Henry Bromell [Brotherhood], Alex Cary [Lie to Me] and me that first season.
SALKE Each of them had been showrunners. It began the trend of all-star writing staffs.
STIEHM Some people called it a murderers' row, but I thought we were more of a really cool band that lasted two years.
GANSA After the reviews, we took over the entertainment world for a time. Steven Spielberg would call for DVDs.
WALDEN People in the highest levels of government, of entertainment, of business in general, were calling. Within a two-week period, the Obama administration and Secretary Clinton's office called for early cuts of Homeland. The number of times in my career that has happened would be exactly one.
GANSA You start a pilot not knowing whether you have a show or not. But on the second or third day, it's freezing cold and I'm watching Claire and Mandy in their very first scene together on the monitor — wondering if we're going to believe this mentor/protege relationship or even buy them as CIA officers. Within the first 20 seconds, I knew we had a show.
CUESTA Then Osama bin Laden was killed, and it was clear we were getting a series pickup.
PART II: Homeland marks Showtime's most watched premiere in nearly a decade with 2.8 million viewers. A hit in Hollywood and Washington, it's suddenly the most talked-about show in America, but the battle over what to do with Lewis' character casts a pall over the second and third seasons.
NEVINS It was a very well-made pilot, but I didn't have much expectation other than knowing the show was good.
MEREDITH STIEHM (WRITER) They did not have a female writer, so I came on after the fourth episode. It was just Alex, Howard, Chip Johannessen [Dexter], Henry Bromell [Brotherhood], Alex Cary [Lie to Me] and me that first season.
SALKE Each of them had been showrunners. It began the trend of all-star writing staffs.
STIEHM Some people called it a murderers' row, but I thought we were more of a really cool band that lasted two years.
GANSA After the reviews, we took over the entertainment world for a time. Steven Spielberg would call for DVDs.
WALDEN People in the highest levels of government, of entertainment, of business in general, were calling. Within a two-week period, the Obama administration and Secretary Clinton's office called for early cuts of Homeland. The number of times in my career that has happened would be exactly one.
Kent Smith/MTV And SHOWTIME
"When I had my last scene with Mandy, I sort of lost it," says Danes (with Patinkin in season one), "in a cathartic, good way."
_______________________________
DANES Three episodes in, people were literally
running out of stores, charging me with enthusiasm. I'd never
experienced that before. My So-Called Life had this amazingly rich afterlife, but there wasn't that appreciation as it was airing.
GANSA Damian went to the White House.
LEWIS Donald Trump and others on the right were peddling this idea that Obama was born in Kenya, so I had this season-one DVD and, tongue in cheek, I wrote him a note.
GANSA It read, "From one Muslim to another."
LEWIS It was a very British thing to do, but it festered. Two weeks later, I emailed [White House Press Secretary] Jay Carney, "Please tell me that the president got my joke!" Jay said, "Yeah, he got it. Everything's cool."
ROSEN I was at some ridiculous dinner where Obama goes from table to table, and his aide is whispering in his ear who everyone is. When he gets to me, Obama looks at me and goes, "You're involved in Homeland? On Saturdays, Michelle goes to play tennis with the girls and I tell her I'm going down to the office to work. What I'm really doing is watching Homeland DVDs."
LEVINE A meeting was arranged between the cast, the network and the CIA at Langley. They confiscated our cellphones, and our whole team is just sitting there across from maybe 50 CIA agents.
NEVINS John Brennan, who was running the CIA at the time, came out in the middle and says, "I don't know what your show is, but I know it matters to my people."
LEVINE Then he grabbed Mandy and said, "Hey, do you want to see your office?"
GANSA They talked about how similar our professions were — it's a lot of acting, storytelling and feigned intimacy.
DANES There were parodies on Saturday Night Live and in MAD magazine. That's a real sign that you've made it, getting roasted. There was a porn made about us.
GANSA Damian went to the White House.
LEWIS Donald Trump and others on the right were peddling this idea that Obama was born in Kenya, so I had this season-one DVD and, tongue in cheek, I wrote him a note.
GANSA It read, "From one Muslim to another."
LEWIS It was a very British thing to do, but it festered. Two weeks later, I emailed [White House Press Secretary] Jay Carney, "Please tell me that the president got my joke!" Jay said, "Yeah, he got it. Everything's cool."
ROSEN I was at some ridiculous dinner where Obama goes from table to table, and his aide is whispering in his ear who everyone is. When he gets to me, Obama looks at me and goes, "You're involved in Homeland? On Saturdays, Michelle goes to play tennis with the girls and I tell her I'm going down to the office to work. What I'm really doing is watching Homeland DVDs."
LEVINE A meeting was arranged between the cast, the network and the CIA at Langley. They confiscated our cellphones, and our whole team is just sitting there across from maybe 50 CIA agents.
NEVINS John Brennan, who was running the CIA at the time, came out in the middle and says, "I don't know what your show is, but I know it matters to my people."
LEVINE Then he grabbed Mandy and said, "Hey, do you want to see your office?"
GANSA They talked about how similar our professions were — it's a lot of acting, storytelling and feigned intimacy.
DANES There were parodies on Saturday Night Live and in MAD magazine. That's a real sign that you've made it, getting roasted. There was a porn made about us.
Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
Homeland blew every
other drama out of the water at the 2012 Emmys, with acting trophies for
Danes and Lewis, a writing win for Gansa and Gordon, and a best drama
victory that toppled long-standing champ Mad Men.
__________________________________
NEVINS One of the most memorable experiences coming out of the show was that first Emmy night.
WALDEN I was so overwhelmed that night. I just kept hearing them name the show.
GANSA It was very funny seeing those guys [John Landgraf and Kevin Reilly] at the Emmys that year. They just looked at me and shook their heads.
SALKE Everybody bemoans turning down Homeland — no one more than Kevin Reilly.
ROSEN My dear friends at HBO were not entirely pleased with me, to put it very mildly, that they didn't get a shot.
PATINKIN I had never seen anything like that first season. But nothing is ever like the first time. It's never that good again. The art of living is trying to keep it good enough.
NEVINS Brody was intended to be just a few episodes — but, from the very first script, I said no. We started tinkering with the relationship.
GANSA It was so clear after the first season that there was still story to tell. And the relationship between the two of them in the most unexpected way had become front and center.
SALKE You didn't know if you're watching for Brody or Carrie, but you were definitely watching for both of them. It was so fucking compelling.
GORDON Chemistry, whatever that is, they had it.
WALDEN I was so overwhelmed that night. I just kept hearing them name the show.
GANSA It was very funny seeing those guys [John Landgraf and Kevin Reilly] at the Emmys that year. They just looked at me and shook their heads.
SALKE Everybody bemoans turning down Homeland — no one more than Kevin Reilly.
ROSEN My dear friends at HBO were not entirely pleased with me, to put it very mildly, that they didn't get a shot.
PATINKIN I had never seen anything like that first season. But nothing is ever like the first time. It's never that good again. The art of living is trying to keep it good enough.
NEVINS Brody was intended to be just a few episodes — but, from the very first script, I said no. We started tinkering with the relationship.
GANSA It was so clear after the first season that there was still story to tell. And the relationship between the two of them in the most unexpected way had become front and center.
SALKE You didn't know if you're watching for Brody or Carrie, but you were definitely watching for both of them. It was so fucking compelling.
GORDON Chemistry, whatever that is, they had it.
Photographed by David Needleman
"Three episodes in, people were
literally running out of stores, charging me with enthusiasm. I'd never
experienced that before," said Danes.
_______________________________
LEWIS My understanding was always two years. Halfway
through season two, having not explicitly said they were killing Brody,
they gave Nevins the breakdown: "And this is when Brody dies." Nevins
was like, "No, no, no. Brody's not dying."
GANSA I don't know that they were having conversations. They were just on their knees, begging not to get rid of Damian.
WALDEN They contemplated every conceivable scenario of what happens to the show with him, what happens to the show without him.
CHIP JOHANNESSEN (WRITER) At that point, [keeping him] was not a decision we made. It was a decision that was made for us and we adapted to it.
LEWIS When the critics started saying the show lost its port, I think it's because the guys had to reimagine and rewrite it just to keep me going.
NEVINS We got hammered on things that we didn't deserve to be hammered on.
GANSA By season three, the story was running out of steam.
PATINKIN I think they kept the Brody story going a year too long.
LEWIS I wasn't in every episode that last season, and that confused people. Brody was a problem. You couldn't keep flip-flopping. "Are they going to kill each other or fuck each other?" was interesting for a while.
DANES We always knew that that was a finite relationship.
GORDON But we'd baked him into the fabric of the thing.
WALDEN Finally losing Brody, that conversation made me a little sick to my stomach.
GANSA There would have been something braver about ending his story sooner. But season three proved so difficult on so many fronts. Henry Bromell died [of a heart attack in 2013], and we were getting rid of Damian even though he and Claire had the most incredible thing.
DANES Alex is actually a really good surfer, which is kind of the best metaphor for television. You're riding this wave, and you don't really know where it's going to take you exactly.
GANSA The praise and the criticism are both overstated. We shouldn't have gotten that much praise in the beginning. And where we got criticism, from people who didn't want to watch the show after Brody died or from whatever backlash we had when Quinn [Rupert Friend] died, it's because people start becoming proprietary about the characters once you've been on the air long enough.
RUPERT FRIEND (PETER QUINN) If I remember right, he'd been gassed and in a coma. Alex said, "Well, this has been great, thanks a lot. Bye." Then, a year later, I got an equally matter-of-fact, "Actually, you're not dead." Then he really died.
JOHANNESSEN It took me a while to warm up to Rupert …
GANSA I don't know that they were having conversations. They were just on their knees, begging not to get rid of Damian.
WALDEN They contemplated every conceivable scenario of what happens to the show with him, what happens to the show without him.
CHIP JOHANNESSEN (WRITER) At that point, [keeping him] was not a decision we made. It was a decision that was made for us and we adapted to it.
LEWIS When the critics started saying the show lost its port, I think it's because the guys had to reimagine and rewrite it just to keep me going.
NEVINS We got hammered on things that we didn't deserve to be hammered on.
GANSA By season three, the story was running out of steam.
PATINKIN I think they kept the Brody story going a year too long.
LEWIS I wasn't in every episode that last season, and that confused people. Brody was a problem. You couldn't keep flip-flopping. "Are they going to kill each other or fuck each other?" was interesting for a while.
DANES We always knew that that was a finite relationship.
GORDON But we'd baked him into the fabric of the thing.
WALDEN Finally losing Brody, that conversation made me a little sick to my stomach.
GANSA There would have been something braver about ending his story sooner. But season three proved so difficult on so many fronts. Henry Bromell died [of a heart attack in 2013], and we were getting rid of Damian even though he and Claire had the most incredible thing.
DANES Alex is actually a really good surfer, which is kind of the best metaphor for television. You're riding this wave, and you don't really know where it's going to take you exactly.
GANSA The praise and the criticism are both overstated. We shouldn't have gotten that much praise in the beginning. And where we got criticism, from people who didn't want to watch the show after Brody died or from whatever backlash we had when Quinn [Rupert Friend] died, it's because people start becoming proprietary about the characters once you've been on the air long enough.
RUPERT FRIEND (PETER QUINN) If I remember right, he'd been gassed and in a coma. Alex said, "Well, this has been great, thanks a lot. Bye." Then, a year later, I got an equally matter-of-fact, "Actually, you're not dead." Then he really died.
JOHANNESSEN It took me a while to warm up to Rupert …
Claire Danes in Showtime character television for a while," said agent Rick Rosen.
GANSA There was a lot happening behind the scenes that I'm not at liberty to share.
JOHANNESSEN But by the time he is apparently dead at the end of season five, we all adored him. Bringing him back [briefly] in season six was driven by some unfinished stuff between Quinn and Carrie.
SALKE There are viewers, especially women, who liked Quinn more than Brody.
FRIEND Lesli Linka Glatter [director/producer] once told me he's kind of a perfect man — to which I said, "Lesli, he kills people for money."
DANES A lot of people died on this show, especially if they ever made out with Carrie Mathison.
PART III: Without Lewis, Homeland re-centers on Danes' erratic case officer and moves production abroad to Berlin and Cape Town (subbing for Pakistan), as the series becomes more informed by meetings with A-list intelligence experts.
GANSA We were always very interested in what was being said and discussed in the halls of power in Washington, not just at the CIA but the White House, the State Department and in the Washington Post press room. That began to inform us more after season three. Without Brody, we had to pick an idea to talk about over a season. That's when Spy Camp became really important.
STIEHM The writers would meet in January, knowing we had to shoot by June, but we never knew what the story was going to be. D.C. was really a fishing expedition.
JOHN MCGAFFIN (FORMER CIA OFFICER) Henry Bromell, my cousin, had started calling me and asking, "John, what would happen if …?" After Henry died, Alex called and asked if I'd still be willing to help out.
GORDON We'd already been turned down by the military, which was so cooperative on 24. They wanted nothing to do with a show about a soldier who came home a terrorist. We found that out when Michael Klick, one of our producers, needed some sort of helicopter or something — and they were like, "No fucking way."
MCGAFFIN The show was greatly popular with intelligence officials, and they became increasingly eager to help us. So I made arrangements with the City Tavern Club, one of the oldest private clubs in Georgetown that a lot of former CIA people frequent, that we would take over the top floor for a week.
GANSA The day would start at 8 a.m., and it would often end after 10 p.m. It was this old place with rickety chairs and the same food all the time.
GORDON Oh God, it's so disgusting … soggy. But the level of people you would not believe — and they'd come for two hours, two intense hours.
MCGAFFIN Former CIA people, ambassadors, ex-military, journalists, intelligence officers of all kinds would sit down with the writers, Lesli, Alex, Howard, Mandy and Claire. And every source who came in, I told them they were there to answer this question: "What are the national security issues likely to bite the security establishment in the ass over the coming year?"
GANSA The first thing we got was a litany of everything we got wrong: "We don't talk on our cellphones. We don't operate on American soil. Carrie would have to take blood tests, so the medication would come up." But we got the spirit right, and that's what they appreciated.
PATINKIN Every year, every individual echoed the same concerns, and it really started setting the tone for each season.
DANES It was an avalanche of unsettling information.
LESLI LINKA GLATTER (DIRECTOR/PRODUCER) We had Gen. Michael Hayden, the guy in the Iraq War doing rendition, black sites and enhanced torture techniques — so, to me, he was the devil — booked back-to-back with Dana Priest, who won the Pulitzer Prize for writing the book that exposed rendition, black sites and enhanced torture techniques.
GANSA We had to figure out a way to usher Hayden down one set of stairs and Priest up another set of stairs because you didn't want them to run into each other. There was so much hostility.
MCGAFFIN We arranged a Skype call once with two senior Mossad officers in Tel Aviv and had a long discussion about spy work with Iranians.
GLATTER And any time we had a new actor who played a spy, Alex and I talked to them about what it means to be a spy. We had this one guy, and we're going on and on, and he interrupts and says, "I'm so sorry, I really need to stop you. I was in Mossad."
GANSA Bart Gellman, this Pulitzer Prize winner who wrote the Cheney book [Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency], told me he was going to bring a guest. He shows up with his laptop, sets it up, dials a number or whatever, and the next thing we know, we're talking to Ed Snowden in Moscow. Very odd guy. But this is before he was doing any talking to anybody.
PATINKIN You knew everyone at the CIA, the FBI and the GRU in Russia were listening in. You just knew it. I tried my butt off to get him to talk about personal stuff, but we couldn't budge him from his soapbox.
MCGAFFIN I didn't want to be identified, so I kept sliding Alex notes. I had him say, "There's a senior intelligence officer here, and he thinks he knows what's going to happen to you." Snowden is all, "What do you mean?" And I made Alex say, "Sooner or later, when they've gotten everything out of you, Putin is going to have you killed and make it look like the Americans did it." I hope he didn't sleep for weeks.
GLATTER To make sure I got shoots correct, I looked up the most incendiary videos — public hangings in Tehran, how to emigrate to ISIS, jihadi videos, beheadings. And I downloaded it on my home computer, like an idiot, and now I get strip searched every time I go through Heathrow.
MCGAFFIN Another Spy Camp, I told everybody coming that their job was to make the writers understand how serious the threat of Russian election interference was. We did a whole season [season six] about that before anyone was talking about it.
GLATTER That's when I thought we jumped the shark. Then, of course, by the time we were airing it, that's exactly what was going on in the news.
GANSA When Trump was elected, all of the sudden we didn't have to bring these people in through separate entrances. The press and the "deep state," if you want to call it that, were both really freaked out by this president.
GLATTER Our advisers said that every president-elect who comes in for their first intelligence briefing leaves overwhelmed by the enormity of the task. They thought they understood what was going on in the world, but when you're told what's happening on a classified level, they realize how big the job is. That did not happen with Trump.
JOHANNESSEN There was all of this Trump stuff we heard about — Russian connections, the laundering of money into his places in Florida. Some of it became public during the [James] Comey stuff, but a lot of it didn't, and you're sitting there wondering, "Why not?"
GANSA One thing that we learned is that you keep American foreign policy consistent from one administration to the next. The worst thing you can do is to backtrack, like to say no to the Climate Change Agreement or the Iran treaty. That is anathema for the intelligence community because it rocks the boat. It makes nobody trust us abroad.
PART IV: Accused of peddling Islamophobia throughout its run, several events during production of the fifth season prompt Gansa and company to take a look at their portrayal of the Muslim world.
GANSA During season five, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning to a panicked call from Germany. We'd been punched by a bunch of German-Muslim artists we'd hired to do the graffiti for our refugee camp set. Some of it, in Arabic, said stuff like "Homeland is racist" and "Homeland is a watermelon."
GORDON There was a central irony [to that response]. In the reductive way that people would say 24 was just executing talking points for George W. Bush and Roger Ailes, a similarly reductive assessment of Homeland is that it's an answer, an apology or more nuanced story — which it is.
GANSA I thought, "This is the greatest thing that could have happened. We are now going to become the center of a conversation about how America's power is being discussed."
GORDON We did go to great lengths to portray Muslim characters who had a broad range of views about the world.
PATINKIN That's been uncomfortable for all of us, the othering aspect.
GANSA Then the worst thing that could have possibly happened did. I was on the plane, going to Germany to film a terrorist attack on a Berlin train station when the [2015] Paris attacks happened. That was the lowest point of the show for me.
DANES There was always some parallel like that — but the bombings and shootings in Paris, that's what made me jumpy. I didn't know that were were always going to be mirroring current events so directly, that that would be such a part of the DNA of the show.
GANSA So it's just days later, and we were down in this abandoned subway with a bunch of Muslim actors wondering what the fuck we were doing.
GLATTER We talked about it, had a moment for the people who had been lost. It was very important for everyone to be aware and take care of one another.
GANSA Because the actors were like, "Why are we doing this? Are we perpetrating the stereotypes?" Even though the hero of that particular story was a Muslim guy who stopped the attack, it was happening right next door, and it was still so raw.
PATINKIN I'm not an idiot. I know terrorism and violence sells. That's never going to change. I just want to bring the narrative of the polar opposite to at least move to a halfway point.
GANSA If I had it to do all over again, knowing what had happened in Paris, we would've told a different story — but we were at a point where there was no turning back. But it did really influence the next three seasons because we came back to the States.
GORDON And if anything, you showed the rot inside [America] from that hyper correction.
PATINKIN This is a novel, this television series. Certainly, there are chapters that aren't helpful to one group or another — and there was pushback on that, to say the least. But there was also a lot of care taken to make other people the bad guys — white guys, the government, the CIA. But they didn't get as much attention as the terrorists.
GANSA We're now deconstructing the authorship of things. Sometimes, I'm like, "Do we have the right to write this?" I really don't know. But if we started this show today...
GORDON Oh, we'd be pilloried! Pilloried!
JOHANNESSEN But by the time he is apparently dead at the end of season five, we all adored him. Bringing him back [briefly] in season six was driven by some unfinished stuff between Quinn and Carrie.
SALKE There are viewers, especially women, who liked Quinn more than Brody.
FRIEND Lesli Linka Glatter [director/producer] once told me he's kind of a perfect man — to which I said, "Lesli, he kills people for money."
DANES A lot of people died on this show, especially if they ever made out with Carrie Mathison.
PART III: Without Lewis, Homeland re-centers on Danes' erratic case officer and moves production abroad to Berlin and Cape Town (subbing for Pakistan), as the series becomes more informed by meetings with A-list intelligence experts.
GANSA We were always very interested in what was being said and discussed in the halls of power in Washington, not just at the CIA but the White House, the State Department and in the Washington Post press room. That began to inform us more after season three. Without Brody, we had to pick an idea to talk about over a season. That's when Spy Camp became really important.
STIEHM The writers would meet in January, knowing we had to shoot by June, but we never knew what the story was going to be. D.C. was really a fishing expedition.
JOHN MCGAFFIN (FORMER CIA OFFICER) Henry Bromell, my cousin, had started calling me and asking, "John, what would happen if …?" After Henry died, Alex called and asked if I'd still be willing to help out.
GORDON We'd already been turned down by the military, which was so cooperative on 24. They wanted nothing to do with a show about a soldier who came home a terrorist. We found that out when Michael Klick, one of our producers, needed some sort of helicopter or something — and they were like, "No fucking way."
MCGAFFIN The show was greatly popular with intelligence officials, and they became increasingly eager to help us. So I made arrangements with the City Tavern Club, one of the oldest private clubs in Georgetown that a lot of former CIA people frequent, that we would take over the top floor for a week.
GANSA The day would start at 8 a.m., and it would often end after 10 p.m. It was this old place with rickety chairs and the same food all the time.
GORDON Oh God, it's so disgusting … soggy. But the level of people you would not believe — and they'd come for two hours, two intense hours.
MCGAFFIN Former CIA people, ambassadors, ex-military, journalists, intelligence officers of all kinds would sit down with the writers, Lesli, Alex, Howard, Mandy and Claire. And every source who came in, I told them they were there to answer this question: "What are the national security issues likely to bite the security establishment in the ass over the coming year?"
GANSA The first thing we got was a litany of everything we got wrong: "We don't talk on our cellphones. We don't operate on American soil. Carrie would have to take blood tests, so the medication would come up." But we got the spirit right, and that's what they appreciated.
PATINKIN Every year, every individual echoed the same concerns, and it really started setting the tone for each season.
DANES It was an avalanche of unsettling information.
LESLI LINKA GLATTER (DIRECTOR/PRODUCER) We had Gen. Michael Hayden, the guy in the Iraq War doing rendition, black sites and enhanced torture techniques — so, to me, he was the devil — booked back-to-back with Dana Priest, who won the Pulitzer Prize for writing the book that exposed rendition, black sites and enhanced torture techniques.
GANSA We had to figure out a way to usher Hayden down one set of stairs and Priest up another set of stairs because you didn't want them to run into each other. There was so much hostility.
MCGAFFIN We arranged a Skype call once with two senior Mossad officers in Tel Aviv and had a long discussion about spy work with Iranians.
GLATTER And any time we had a new actor who played a spy, Alex and I talked to them about what it means to be a spy. We had this one guy, and we're going on and on, and he interrupts and says, "I'm so sorry, I really need to stop you. I was in Mossad."
GANSA Bart Gellman, this Pulitzer Prize winner who wrote the Cheney book [Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency], told me he was going to bring a guest. He shows up with his laptop, sets it up, dials a number or whatever, and the next thing we know, we're talking to Ed Snowden in Moscow. Very odd guy. But this is before he was doing any talking to anybody.
PATINKIN You knew everyone at the CIA, the FBI and the GRU in Russia were listening in. You just knew it. I tried my butt off to get him to talk about personal stuff, but we couldn't budge him from his soapbox.
MCGAFFIN I didn't want to be identified, so I kept sliding Alex notes. I had him say, "There's a senior intelligence officer here, and he thinks he knows what's going to happen to you." Snowden is all, "What do you mean?" And I made Alex say, "Sooner or later, when they've gotten everything out of you, Putin is going to have you killed and make it look like the Americans did it." I hope he didn't sleep for weeks.
GLATTER To make sure I got shoots correct, I looked up the most incendiary videos — public hangings in Tehran, how to emigrate to ISIS, jihadi videos, beheadings. And I downloaded it on my home computer, like an idiot, and now I get strip searched every time I go through Heathrow.
MCGAFFIN Another Spy Camp, I told everybody coming that their job was to make the writers understand how serious the threat of Russian election interference was. We did a whole season [season six] about that before anyone was talking about it.
GLATTER That's when I thought we jumped the shark. Then, of course, by the time we were airing it, that's exactly what was going on in the news.
GANSA When Trump was elected, all of the sudden we didn't have to bring these people in through separate entrances. The press and the "deep state," if you want to call it that, were both really freaked out by this president.
GLATTER Our advisers said that every president-elect who comes in for their first intelligence briefing leaves overwhelmed by the enormity of the task. They thought they understood what was going on in the world, but when you're told what's happening on a classified level, they realize how big the job is. That did not happen with Trump.
JOHANNESSEN There was all of this Trump stuff we heard about — Russian connections, the laundering of money into his places in Florida. Some of it became public during the [James] Comey stuff, but a lot of it didn't, and you're sitting there wondering, "Why not?"
GANSA One thing that we learned is that you keep American foreign policy consistent from one administration to the next. The worst thing you can do is to backtrack, like to say no to the Climate Change Agreement or the Iran treaty. That is anathema for the intelligence community because it rocks the boat. It makes nobody trust us abroad.
PART IV: Accused of peddling Islamophobia throughout its run, several events during production of the fifth season prompt Gansa and company to take a look at their portrayal of the Muslim world.
GANSA During season five, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning to a panicked call from Germany. We'd been punched by a bunch of German-Muslim artists we'd hired to do the graffiti for our refugee camp set. Some of it, in Arabic, said stuff like "Homeland is racist" and "Homeland is a watermelon."
GORDON There was a central irony [to that response]. In the reductive way that people would say 24 was just executing talking points for George W. Bush and Roger Ailes, a similarly reductive assessment of Homeland is that it's an answer, an apology or more nuanced story — which it is.
GANSA I thought, "This is the greatest thing that could have happened. We are now going to become the center of a conversation about how America's power is being discussed."
GORDON We did go to great lengths to portray Muslim characters who had a broad range of views about the world.
PATINKIN That's been uncomfortable for all of us, the othering aspect.
GANSA Then the worst thing that could have possibly happened did. I was on the plane, going to Germany to film a terrorist attack on a Berlin train station when the [2015] Paris attacks happened. That was the lowest point of the show for me.
DANES There was always some parallel like that — but the bombings and shootings in Paris, that's what made me jumpy. I didn't know that were were always going to be mirroring current events so directly, that that would be such a part of the DNA of the show.
GANSA So it's just days later, and we were down in this abandoned subway with a bunch of Muslim actors wondering what the fuck we were doing.
GLATTER We talked about it, had a moment for the people who had been lost. It was very important for everyone to be aware and take care of one another.
GANSA Because the actors were like, "Why are we doing this? Are we perpetrating the stereotypes?" Even though the hero of that particular story was a Muslim guy who stopped the attack, it was happening right next door, and it was still so raw.
PATINKIN I'm not an idiot. I know terrorism and violence sells. That's never going to change. I just want to bring the narrative of the polar opposite to at least move to a halfway point.
GANSA If I had it to do all over again, knowing what had happened in Paris, we would've told a different story — but we were at a point where there was no turning back. But it did really influence the next three seasons because we came back to the States.
GORDON And if anything, you showed the rot inside [America] from that hyper correction.
PATINKIN This is a novel, this television series. Certainly, there are chapters that aren't helpful to one group or another — and there was pushback on that, to say the least. But there was also a lot of care taken to make other people the bad guys — white guys, the government, the CIA. But they didn't get as much attention as the terrorists.
GANSA We're now deconstructing the authorship of things. Sometimes, I'm like, "Do we have the right to write this?" I really don't know. But if we started this show today...
GORDON Oh, we'd be pilloried! Pilloried!
Paul Drinkwater/NBC via Getty Images
Claire Danes in Showtime character television for a while," said agent Rick Rosen. accepted the best drama series Golden Globe in 2012.
_____________________________
PART V: Despite pleas from Showtime to continue, producers agree to an endgame for Homeland with a three-season renewal in 2016. After several delays, in part because of Danes' pregnancy and a lengthy Morocco shoot, the final season sends the story back to the Middle East.
GORDON Ending the show? It was a very short conversation.
NEVINS It was a triangular negotiation between what the producers wanted, what the studio wanted and what we wanted. Alex really wanted to write to an end point.
GANSA The economics of it were so strong that we all decided we could tell three more seasons. And frankly, the advent of Donald Trump really gave us fresh wind in our sails.
SALKE The show demanded money based on how big of a production it became. [In its final season, Homeland's budget swelled to more than double the first season's $3 million per-episode price tag. Danes alone was making north of $500,000 an episode.] When Alex and Howard want to shoot the final season in the Middle East, you're not doing it in Barstow. You're going to Morocco.
GANSA We thought we'd go and tell one last story about Carrie Mathison doing what she was trained to do, serve as a case officer overseas. So, we went back abroad one more time.
GORDON Ending the show? It was a very short conversation.
NEVINS It was a triangular negotiation between what the producers wanted, what the studio wanted and what we wanted. Alex really wanted to write to an end point.
GANSA The economics of it were so strong that we all decided we could tell three more seasons. And frankly, the advent of Donald Trump really gave us fresh wind in our sails.
SALKE The show demanded money based on how big of a production it became. [In its final season, Homeland's budget swelled to more than double the first season's $3 million per-episode price tag. Danes alone was making north of $500,000 an episode.] When Alex and Howard want to shoot the final season in the Middle East, you're not doing it in Barstow. You're going to Morocco.
GANSA We thought we'd go and tell one last story about Carrie Mathison doing what she was trained to do, serve as a case officer overseas. So, we went back abroad one more time.
Claire Danes Hollywood Walk OF Fame For Showtime Production on the final season sent Patinkin and Danes to Casablanca, doubling for Kabul.
______________________________
GLATTER We were told we had full Moroccan military
support. So, in one scene we had two C130 [aircrafts] and a bunch of
Humvees and helicopters as set dressing. All of a sudden, we get a bill
for $230,000.
DANES We actually did the last days in Northridge, California. So the last shot, we're filming in L.A. [in October] with raging fires. We should not have been filming, but we didn't have a choice. The crew was wearing masks. Of course, we're ending this show in an inferno.
GANSA Really, the entire run of the show has asked, "Did America overreact to 9/11? Did we compromise our values? Did we overreach?" I don't think the world has found an answer.
DANES We were so much about reflecting what was happening, politically, in the moment. How that ages, how we perceived it and what that exposes, in 10 years' time, will be compelling to see.
NEVINS You can't get to a finale of a long-running show without answering the dreaded [spinoff] question …
GANSA Every time Howard brings up doing more, I want to punch him.
GORDON I'm really just doing it to irritate him, but never say never.
GANSA Howard gave his 40s to 24. I gave my 50s to Homeland. And it got to a point where everyone wants to do something different.
DANES I need this last season released into the world before it really ends for me, and then I'm sure I'll surface eventually. It's going to be a long process of seeing who I am as an actor out of this show — which has defined me for so long. I don't know where to start, but I should play somebody decidedly sane.
***
Who's Who at Homeland's "Spy Camp"
The helpful experts — at least those who can be revealed — included generals, Pulitzer winners and an exiled whistleblower
A. ELIZABETH JONES
DANES We actually did the last days in Northridge, California. So the last shot, we're filming in L.A. [in October] with raging fires. We should not have been filming, but we didn't have a choice. The crew was wearing masks. Of course, we're ending this show in an inferno.
GANSA Really, the entire run of the show has asked, "Did America overreact to 9/11? Did we compromise our values? Did we overreach?" I don't think the world has found an answer.
DANES We were so much about reflecting what was happening, politically, in the moment. How that ages, how we perceived it and what that exposes, in 10 years' time, will be compelling to see.
NEVINS You can't get to a finale of a long-running show without answering the dreaded [spinoff] question …
GANSA Every time Howard brings up doing more, I want to punch him.
GORDON I'm really just doing it to irritate him, but never say never.
GANSA Howard gave his 40s to 24. I gave my 50s to Homeland. And it got to a point where everyone wants to do something different.
DANES I need this last season released into the world before it really ends for me, and then I'm sure I'll surface eventually. It's going to be a long process of seeing who I am as an actor out of this show — which has defined me for so long. I don't know where to start, but I should play somebody decidedly sane.
***
Who's Who at Homeland's "Spy Camp"
The helpful experts — at least those who can be revealed — included generals, Pulitzer winners and an exiled whistleblower
A. ELIZABETH JONES
A foreign service officer for more than 35 years, Jones worked for
the State Department in Kabul, Cairo, Amman, Baghdad and Berlin.
"Watching the impeachment hearings," says Glatter, "she'd literally be
sitting right there in the gallery. Oh, that's Beth."
STANLEY A. MCCHRYSTAL
A retired Army general who was once the head of the Joint Special Operations Command, at one point McChrystal was responsible for leading all U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He now teaches international relations at Yale University.
DANA PRIEST
The longtime Washington Post correspondent has two Pulitzer Prizes, including one for her beat reporting on the more incendiary features of the U.S. government's counterterrorism campaign abroad — including brutal interrogation techniques.
EDWARD SNOWDEN
Washington Post writer Bart Gellman, who ran point on coverage of Snowden's release of top-secret documents, put the exiled former NSA contractor on an hours-long Spy Camp call before he appeared in a documentary or started giving interviews.
MICHAEL HAYDEN
Overseeing the NSA's creation of domestic wiretaps during the George W. Bush administration, among other controversial moves, the onetime CIA director has since distanced himself from many conservative allies with his Trump criticism.
***
Homeland: By the Numbers
7M: Weekly audience for its most watched season, No. 3, across platforms
200+: Territories across the globe that have licensed the series
8: Emmy Wins, including two for Danes, out of 39 nominations
6: Countries where the series filmed over its eight-season run
3: AFI Awards for best television program (2011, 2012 and 2015)
1: Peabody Award for the series' first season in 2011
STANLEY A. MCCHRYSTAL
A retired Army general who was once the head of the Joint Special Operations Command, at one point McChrystal was responsible for leading all U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He now teaches international relations at Yale University.
DANA PRIEST
The longtime Washington Post correspondent has two Pulitzer Prizes, including one for her beat reporting on the more incendiary features of the U.S. government's counterterrorism campaign abroad — including brutal interrogation techniques.
EDWARD SNOWDEN
Washington Post writer Bart Gellman, who ran point on coverage of Snowden's release of top-secret documents, put the exiled former NSA contractor on an hours-long Spy Camp call before he appeared in a documentary or started giving interviews.
MICHAEL HAYDEN
Overseeing the NSA's creation of domestic wiretaps during the George W. Bush administration, among other controversial moves, the onetime CIA director has since distanced himself from many conservative allies with his Trump criticism.
***
Homeland: By the Numbers
7M: Weekly audience for its most watched season, No. 3, across platforms
200+: Territories across the globe that have licensed the series
8: Emmy Wins, including two for Danes, out of 39 nominations
6: Countries where the series filmed over its eight-season run
3: AFI Awards for best television program (2011, 2012 and 2015)
1: Peabody Award for the series' first season in 2011
Jason Merritt/Getty Images
* * *
LISTEN: You can hear the entire interview below [starting at 11:21], following a conversation between host Scott Feinberg and Matt Belloni, THR's editorial director, about a week of Hollywood wheelings and dealings: Disney's and Comcast's fight over Fox, AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner and Oprah's and Apple's new partnership.
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* * *
Danes was born in Manhattan to two artists who raised her in its SoHo neighborhood. She began dancing at age four but, after seeing her "initial inspiration," Madonna, on TV when she was five, she shifted her focus to performing. Things escalated quickly from there: she enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute at 10; landed her first agent at 12; and, at 13, turned down an offer to play a small part in Schindler's List, but auditioned for and won — over Alicia Silverstone, who was three years older — the lead in an ABC pilot from the creators of Thirtysomething called My So-Called Life. "I'm just so glad that they took that risk on me," she says, since the show — a drama series about high- schooler Angela Chase, played by Danes — was eventually ordered to series.
Danes had not yet been to high school, but, like her character, she had experienced bullying by classmates, and therefore found the show to be cathartic. "I got to vent all of my frustrations in the most perfectly articulated way, so that was a massive gift," she says. "I had a lot of rage to release." The show put Danes firmly on the map — for it, she won a Golden Globe and received an Emmy nomination — but it failed to attract ratings, leading to its cancelation after only 19 episodes. "It was probably just a little too ahead of its time," she says, but adds, "I'm amazed by its endurance and the extent of its afterlife — I'm amazed and moved by it, really. People who grew up with the show are now sharing it with their teenagers, and it has proven to continue to speak to current generations. It's kind of timeless."
As a result of My So-Called Life, Danes soon began to be cast in prominent film roles. She popped up in Little Women (1994), opposite Winona Ryder; Home for the Holidays (1995), under the direction of Jodie Foster; and Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996), as the Juliet to DiCaprio's Romeo, which made her an international star. In fact, she was approached about reuniting with DiCaprio a year later in Titanic, but passed. She explains, "I had just filmed Romeo + Juliet in Mexico City; Titanic was going to be filmed in Mexico again, for another five months or something. With Leo [again]. Another romantic epic. I think I just couldn't repeat that experience so immediately, and I wanted to experiment with different styles of storytelling." She adds, "Do I regret that? No, I don't." Instead, Danes was able to appear in Francis Ford Coppola's The Rainmaker (1997) and Oliver Stone's U-Turn (1997) before taking a two-year hiatus from the biz to attend Yale University. As she puts it, "I had always wanted to go to college, and I think I was a little confused about how to be a movie star."
When Danes returned to her career, she somewhat struggled to recapture her groove. "I was overthinking it for a while there," she says. Still, she was a part of some widely seen films, like the best picture Oscar nominee The Hours (2002), and was excellent in some little-seen films, like Stage Beauty (2004) and Shopgirl (2005); Evening (2007), meanwhile, "gave me the rest of my life," she says, referring to Hugh Dancy, her co-star, whom she would wed in 2009. Then came the aforementioned Temple Grandin and, in a return to series TV 16 years after My So-Called Life went off the air, Homeland. The pilot that she read for Homeland was, she says, "undeniably great," but she still "had a lot of concerns and questions." She was gratified when, after the pilot, it was decided that her character was not just intense, but bipolar, since the actress has always been fascinated with psychology, which was her focus of study at Yale.
Homeland's premiere was Showtime's highest-rated debut of a drama series in eight years, and the show's first season was recognized at the Emmys as the year's best drama series, while Damian Lewis won best actor in a drama series and Danes took home best actress in a drama series. The show's subsequent six seasons have generated widely varying responses from critics and audiences, but its most recent season, number seven, was hailed by many as a return to glory. For her part, Danes, who shot two of the seasons while pregnant, says, "I'm just so grateful that people are still watching." She loves how passionate Homeland viewers are — even about silly things like "Carrie's cry-face." She volunteers, with a twinkle in her eye, "I remember with My So-Called Life, Winnie [Holzman] wrote a scene where Rayanne [A.J. Langer's character] makes fun of Angela's cry-face — which is just Claire's cry-face. I don't know, I guess it's a thing. It's not something that I have worked on. This is just how I cry, folks! It's expressive, I guess. I blame my dad — he has very rubbery features that I think I inherited."
There have been reports that Homeland will end after its next season, the show's eighth. "Nobody's entirely sure if it is the final season," Danes emphasizes. "We think it is, but that's not an absolute certainty." Regardless, the show will come to an end sooner rather than later, and Danes has mixed emotions about that, as she says she still enjoys making it, but also recognizes that large parts of her life have changed since her journey with it began. "I've emerged with maybe a different kind of status in the industry," she acknowledges, "but I've also arrived at a different place in my life, in that I will have two children, one of whom is now five and going to big-boy school and has an agenda of his own that I kind of have to revolve around, so I think those are a new set of demands." Whenever it ends, she says, "I'm gonna need a minute to just reorient myself."
- View PhotoAssociated Press/Carolyn Kaster - President Barack Obama pause as he speaks to reporters in the White House briefing room in Washington, Friday, March 1, 2013, following a meeting with congressional leaders
WASHINGTON (AP) — He's not a dictator and won't
entertain the idea of a "Jedi mind-meld" with opponents. There's no
"secret formula or special sauce" he can slip foes to make them see
things his way. And not to worry, he says, the situation may look dire
but won't be an "apocalypse."
So who was the guy in a suit and tie who showed up Friday in the
White House briefing room, mixing metaphors and references to "Star
Wars" and "Star Trek"?"I am not a dictator. I'm the president," Barack Obama declared as he rejected the idea of using Secret Service agents to keep lawmakers from leaving until everyone agreed on a budget. He answered reporters' questions shortly after an inconclusive, 52-minute meeting with the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate.
"So ultimately, if (Senate Minority leader) Mitch McConnell or (House Speaker) John Boehner say, 'We need to go to catch a plane,' I can't have Secret Service block the doorway. Right?"
Even if he did bar his office — the oval one — Obama said he wouldn't do a "Jedi mind-meld" with Congress' top two Republicans to persuade them "to do what's right."
Yoda-quoting nerds, Beltway insiders and even Hollywood heroes were instantly abuzz. The presidential mishmash of sci-fi references went viral, turning off geeks who had considered Obama one of their own after a slip of the tongue that was almost as bad as confusing Klingons and Ewoks, or even Democrats and Republicans.
Jedi are from "Star Wars," while mind melds happened on "Star Trek."
Mister Spock of "Star Trek" weighed in.
"Only a Vulcan mind-meld would be effective on this Congress. LLAP," Leonard Nimoy emailed after The Associated Press sought his reaction. Nimoy signed off with the abbreviation for his "Live long and prosper."
Maybe it was the power of the Force or some kind of Starfleet prime directive, but the White House couldn't ignore comments like that, flashing in and out of time and space and mixed metaphors like a Tardis traveling at warp speed in social media. It later tweeted: "We must bring balance to the force," with a link to an Obama photo inside a border designed to look like outer space.
As for the situation that led Obama to the briefing room in the first place, he could have quoted Bobby McFerrin and just said: "Don't worry. Be happy."
Instead, the president went with: "This is not going to be a apocalypse."
Watch President Obama's entire speech here:
___
AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein and Associated Press writer Caleb Jones in New York contributed to this report.
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any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content. © All Copyrights Reserved By Patcnews The Patriot Conservative News Tea Party Network
LLC 501C- 4 UCC 1-308.ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WITHOUT PREJUDICE
Content and Programming Copyright 2014 By Patcnews The Patriot Conservative News Tea Party Network © LLC UCC 1-308.ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WITHOUT PREJUDICE All copyrights reserved By Patcnews The Patriot Conservative News Tea Party Network Copyright 2014 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein
are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced,
distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the
prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove
any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content. © All Copyrights Reserved By Patcnews The Patriot Conservative News Tea Party Network
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