At
the TCA Press Tour, co-stars Damian Lewis and Claire Danes talked about their
characters, the changes in season three, Anne Hathaway’s spoff of the show on
SNL and more.
Claire,
how dangerous is it that Carrie is off of her meds again?
DANES: Well, Carrie is always sitting on
her own personal ticking bomb. It’s just
an impossible dilemma because she is not great on the meds, and she’s even
worse off of them. But, there’s a really
great sweet spot, in the middle of those two states, that she’s always trying
to land on, where she’s exceptionally high-performing, and we get to enjoy her
process of finding that balance. It’s
pretty bleak, in the beginning. She’s
gone off her meds, for all sorts of reasons that she believes strongly in, but
it’s always a little precarious.
Both
you and your husband, Hugh Dancy, play crazy characters. What happens when you go home?
DANES: There’s just so much crazy on the screen that
we are tapped out and incredibly dull, by the time we get back home.
How
different is your work with Mandy Patinkin this season, given Saul’s behavior?
DANES: I’ve actually missed my friends. I miss my acting buddies. Carrie has been in isolation for a good chunk
of the season, and it’s only now that she’s starting to team up again with the
more familiar characters. So, I’ve been
feeling a little lonely as Claire, the actor.
Carrie does feel a certain level of betrayal. Both Saul and Carrie share an enormous,
profound amount of guilt and responsibility for this devastating bomb that has
happened, and this loss. Even though
they are estranged from each other, they are very deeply connected because they
experienced that trauma, in a way that no one else has.
DAMIAN
LEWIS: It’s a function of the story that
we don’t see Brody. Brody is on the
lamb. He’s disappeared into a network of
a tunnel system. It’s an exfiltration
procedure that Carrie has effected. He’s
arguably the most wanted criminal in the world, at this point, so he has to lay
low. I hope that, when you do see Brody
for the fi rst time, it will be interesting.
What’s
it been like to work with Morgan Saylor (who plays Dana), as she’s grown up on
the show?
LEWIS: Morgan is constantly surprising. She’s an instinctive and very spontaneous,
present actress. She’s three years older
now, and the difference between being 15 and 18 is a lot. She’s flourished into a young woman, and
there’s storyline that represents that, in Season 3. Those scenes between her and I were affecting
because she was the one person who seemed to have the breadth of imagination
and curiosity to really understand what had happened to her dad. He acknowledged that in her, and so they had
a strong, mutual connection. It’s very
sad, actually. It’s the one thing you
could come back to and rely on. There
was this gift of love, and some tenderness, between these two. Such is the bleak world outlook of our two
co-creators, that that’s been ripped from us.
Claire,
with both Temple Grandin and Homeland, you’ve gotten a tremendous amount of
praise. Is it really true that you
couldn’t get a job in the year between those two things?
DANES: Yeah.
There was a disconnect, and that was confusing, when people really did
seem to appreciate Temple Grandin, and even my performance within it. I think that a couple things were going
on. One, I was so inspired by that role
and so challenged by it, and I felt like I really had to push myself. I felt energized and emboldened by that, and
ready to take on a similar kind of challenge, but there just aren’t many roles
like that. I didn’t have patience for
regular old stuff. There was also a
dearth of material, in general, in that moment, for whatever reason. But, it all worked out in the end. And also, I guess I had been at it long
enough to know that just to do a job for the sake of it is really a bad
idea. It’s never really satisfying, and
it’s better to just cope with that frustration and wait for something that is
generally enticing.
Was
there a moment where you thought about not acting, and doing something else
instead?
DANES: We’re freelance people and, dare I say,
artists. That’s the risk of what we
do. People say, “Do you feel imprisoned
by your contract for Homeland?,” and I’m like, “No, it’s great insurance.” I know that, at least once a year, I’m going
to get to do really stimulating, worthwhile work.
What
did you think of Anne Hathaway’s portrayal of Carrie for the Saturday Night
Live spoof of Homeland?
DANES: I’m friendly with Anne. I was in Toronto, at the time, with Hugh, who
was doing Hannibal there, and I got a series of texts from her saying, “So, I’m
hosting SNL, and I really hope we can still be friends.” And then, sent me a big bouquet of flowers,
before it aired, and I was like, “Oh, shit!
I don’t know if I want to watch this.”
She was way too nice about it. I
did get a little bit curious and I tried to look it up on my computer, and I
literally couldn’t figure it out because being in Canada created some
difficulty. I enjoyed her flowers, and I
don’t think I need to look at that, but it’s all in good fun. To be honest, I was actually very flattered,
genuinely, to be parodied on SNL. That
means we are relevant. We’re in the
zeitgeist. We’re cool enough to make fun
of.
Do
you feel that there’s a point at which this show is just going to become so
exhausting that you’re going to need a year off?
LEWIS: Oh, we’re past that point.
DANES: Yeah.
I keep thinking, “There’s no way that they can go further. No way!
Their imaginations must be tapped out, at this point.” I really am in awe of what they can do. Every season is just that much more bold and
brave, and involved and surprising. It’s
so much fun. It feels so lucky.
Damian,
you’re an Emmy-winning lead actor, who isn’t in the first two episodes of the
third season. When they told you that
you wouldn’t be in the first episodes, what was your reaction?
LEWIS: They’ve been trying to kill me, since the end
of Episode 1. It’s FOX and Showtime who
keep delaying it. I’m on a stay of
execution, but I don’t know for how much longer. It wasn’t a surprise, at all. It’s completely in line with the idea that
you must be ruthless with story and ruthless with characters. We’ve already seen one or two prominent
characters disappear, and I’m sure there will be more. It’s the world that the story is set in. I think it’s good. TV audiences are so literate now. They’re so good at guessing plot and what’s
going to happen next, and all the different permutations. It’s the timing of story that is in their
power. If you can shock people by the
timing of things, then you’re going to be constantly surprising and astonishing
people, and that’s what they’ve done so well, for the first two years.
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