W hat keeps you up at night?

” That’s the question Homeland showrunner

Alex Gansa annually posed to Washington insiders before putting fin-
gers to keyboard on a season of his Emmy-winning Showtime drama.
What began as a slick spy thriller driven by a potent sexual chemis-
try, 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 sym-
posium in D.C. affectionately dubbed “Spy Camp.”
The series, loosely developed from an Israeli format by Gansa and longtime col-
laborator 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. “When I make a weekly serialized commitment on
had my last
In Hollywood, efforts to capitalize on its early success were dubbed “the scene with broadcast was getting harder and harder. NBC
Homeland effect.” And despite years of would-be copycats following suit on broad- Mandy, I sort passed for similar reasons.
of lost it,”
cast and cable, few captured even a sliver of zeitgeist or lasted more than a single says Danes GORDON And then FX passed. They thought
(with Patinkin
season. Indeed, Homeland briefly seized the industry’s and viewers’ attention in a in season Damages had been problematic because it
way that only Game of Thrones has since — a feat that now seems virtually impos- one), “in was a serialized, but David Nevins had just
a cathartic,
sible in an era with nearly 500 scripted U.S. series airing each year. good way.” started at Showtime.
As the drama is set to premiere its eighth and final season Feb. 9, Gansa, Gordon, Below, from DAVID NEVINS (THEN-EXEC VP ORIGINAL
left: Howard
Danes and those closest to the series look back on the show’s legacy and reveal Gordon, PROGRAMMING AT SHOWTIME) The first couple
Damian
previously untold stories behind their landmark hit — including the battles to Lewis, Danes days on the job, Rick slipped the script to me.
hire (then let go of) Lewis, a secret call with Edward Snowden, how the 2015 Paris and Alex ROSEN That was on a Friday. On Saturday,
Gansa
attacks forced everyone to reassess the series’ portrayal of the Muslim world and in 2012.. David is on the phone saying to me, “If you
why the last batch of episodes, where Danes’ character is now suspected of being a give me this show, I’ll order it to pilot right
double agent, echoes the first. 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
PART I: Former writing partners Alex Gansa and aggressive and went for it in a way I don’t
Howard Gordon, reunited on the last seasons of Fox’s 24, think anyone had ever seen him do before.
option an Israeli format about two freed prisoners GARY LEVINE (THEN-PRESIDENT OF
of war and recast it as an exploration of America’s place ENTERTAINMENT AT SHOWTIME) He was rabid
in the world a decade after 9/11. for it.
NEVINS I had to sell Dana and [then-partner]
ALEX GANSA (CO-CREATOR, SHOWRUNNER) Hatufim, there was no Carrie, no Saul. It was Gary [Newman], so my pitch from the begin-
This was unfinished business. Howard and I really about two soldiers. ning was we’d get it on the air for the 10th
had always wanted to do our own show. DANA WALDEN (THEN-CHAIRMAN OF 20TH anniversary of 9/11, and Dexter, our No. 1 show
HOWARD GORDON (CO-CREATOR) We split up as CENTURY FOX TV) Alex and Howard became at the time, would be its lead-in. But I had one
writing partners in our 20s, during the first taken with this idea of what happens if a pris- big note: Carrie Mathison felt too Jack Bauer.

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
oner 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 inter-
ested in this story. And Dana didn’t want
another 24.
GORDON But she really wanted it to go to Fox.
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
PREVIOUS SPREAD: ON-SET STYLING BY EMILY SANCHEZ. HAIR BY DIDIER MALIGE FOR PHILIP B AT ART PARTNER. MAKEUP BY BRIGITTE REISS-ANDERSEN FOR
ARMANI AT STARWORKS ARTISTS. MANICURE BY ELLE AT TRACEY MATTINGLY. THIS SPREAD: GORDON: JOE PUGLIESE. HOMELAND: KENT SMITH/SHOWTIME.
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 pre-
mium 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.

T H E HOL LY WO OD R EP ORT ER 46 J A N UA RY 16, 2020

GANSA By the time you’re in your mid-40s and
you’ve got bipolar illness for that long, every-
thing 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.
NEVINS 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.
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 con-
tract, 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 person-
ally 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.
SALKE Alex initially pushed for Damian, but
people didn’t see it. Life, on NBC, had just fin-
ished. 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.
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.
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 …
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 appar-
ently 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 watch-
ing Claire and Mandy in their very first scene
together on the monitor — wondering if we’re
going to believe this mentor/protege relation-
ship 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.
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 call-
ing. Within a two-week period,
the Obama administration and
Secretary Clinton’s office called for
early cuts of Homeland. The num-
ber of times in my career that has
happened would be exactly one.
DANES Three episodes in, people
were literally running out of
stores, charging me with enthu-
siasm. I’d never experienced that
Left: 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. Right: Gordon accepted the best drama series Golden Globe in 2012.
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 ridicu-
lous 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
T H E HOL LY WO OD R EP ORT ER
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 sim-
ilar 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.
NEVINS One of the most memora-
ble 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 turn-
ing 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 any-
thing 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.
48
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 watch-
ing for both of them. It was so
fucking compelling.
GORDON Chemistry, whatever that
is, they had it.
LEWIS My understanding was
always two years. Halfway
through season two, having not
explicitly said they were kill-
ing 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 hap-
pens to the show with him, what
happens to the show without him.
CHIP JOHANNESSEN (WRITER)
At that point, [keeping him] was
HOM EL A N D:
BY TH E N U M BERS
7M
Weekly audience for its
200+
Territories across the
most watched season,
No. 3, across platforms
6
Countries where the
series filmed over its
eight-season run
J A N UA RY 16, 2020
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 epi-
sode 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 criti-
cism are both overstated. We
EMMYS: KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/GETTY IMAGES. GLOBES: PAUL DRINKWATER/NBC/GETTY IMAGES. HOMELAND: STEPHAN RABOLD/SHOWTIME.
8
Emmy wins, including
globe that have licensed two for Danes, out of
the series 39 nominations
3
AFI Awards for best
1
Peabody Award for
television program the series’ first season
(2011, 2012 and 2015) in 2011
shouldn’t have gotten that much GANSA There was a lot happening
praise in the beginning. And behind the scenes that I’m not at
where we got criticism, from liberty to share.
people who didn’t want to watch JOHANNESSEN But by the time he
the show after Brody died or from is apparently dead at the end of
whatever backlash we had when season five, we all adored him.
Quinn [Rupert Friend] died, it’s Bringing him back [briefly] in
because people start becoming season six was driven by some
proprietary about the charac- unfinished stuff between Quinn
ters once you’ve been on the air and Carrie.
long enough. SALKE There are viewers, espe-
RUPERT FRIEND (PETER QUINN) cially women, who liked Quinn
If I remember right, he’d been more than Brody.
gassed and in a coma. Alex said, FRIEND Lesli Linka Glatter [direc-
“Well, this has been great, thanks tor/producer] once told me he’s Friend’s
character,
a lot. Bye.” Then, a year later, I kind of a perfect man — to which Peter Quinn
got an equally matter-of-fact, I said, “Lesli, he kills people (with Mehdi
Nebbou,
“Actually, you’re not dead.” Then for money.” sitting, as
Hussein),
he really died. DANES A lot of people died on this died not once
JOHANNESSEN It took me a while to show, especially if they ever made but twice
on the series.
warm up to Rupert … 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 all the time.
was being said and discussed in the halls of GORDON Oh God, it’s so disgusting … soggy. But
power in Washington, not just at the CIA but the level of people you would not believe — and
the White House, the State Department and in they’d come for two hours, two intense hours.
the Washington Post press room. That began MCGAFFIN Former CIA people, ambassadors,
to inform us more after season three. Without ex-military, journalists, intelligence officers
Brody, we had to pick an idea to talk about of all kinds would sit down with the writers,
over a season. That’s when Spy Camp became Lesli, Alex, Howard, Mandy and Claire. And
really important. every source who came in, I told them they
STIEHM The writers would meet in January, were there to answer this question: “What
knowing we had to shoot by June, but we never are the national security issues likely to bite
knew what the story was going to be. D.C. was the security establishment in the ass over the
really a fishing expedition. coming year?”
JOHN MCGAFFIN (FORMER CIA OFFICER) GANSA The first thing we got was a litany of
Henry Bromell, my cousin, had started calling everything we got wrong: “We don’t talk on
me and asking, “John, what would happen our cellphones. We don’t operate on American
if …?” After Henry died, Alex called and asked soil. Carrie would have to take blood tests,
if I’d still be willing to help out. so the medication would come up.” But
GORDON We’d already been turned down by the we got the spirit right, and that’s what
military, which was so cooperative on 24. They they appreciated.
wanted nothing to do with a show about a sol- PATINKIN Every year, every individual echoed
dier who came home a terrorist. We found that the same concerns, and it really started set-
out when Michael Klick, one of our producers, ting the tone for each season.
needed some sort of helicopter or something DANES It was an avalanche of
— and they were like, “No fucking way.” unsettling information.
MCGAFFIN The show was greatly popular LESLI LINKA GLATTER (DIRECTOR/PRODUCER)
with intelligence officials, and they became We had Gen. Michael Hayden, the guy in the
increasingly eager to help us. So I made Iraq War doing rendition, black sites and
arrangements with the City Tavern Club, one enhanced torture techniques — so, to me,
of the oldest private clubs in Georgetown that he was the devil — booked back-to-back with
a lot of former CIA people frequent, that we Dana Priest, who won the Pulitzer Prize for
would take over the top floor for a week. writing the book that exposed rendition, black
GANSA The day would start at 8 a.m., and it sites and enhanced torture techniques.
would often end after 10 p.m. It was this old GANSA We had to figure out a way to usher
place with rickety chairs and the same food Hayden down one set of stairs and Priest up
T H E HOL LY WO OD R EP ORT ER 49 J A N UA RY 16, 2020
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 win-
ner 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 — pub-
lic hangings in Tehran, how to emigrate to
ISIS, jihadi videos, beheadings. And I down-
loaded 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 sea-
son [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 Saint Laurent top,
Bulgari necklace.
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 connec-
tions, 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 morn-
ing to a panicked call from
Germany. We’d been punked
by a bunch of German-Muslim
artists we’d hired to do the graf-
fiti 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 talk-
ing 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 the
greatest thing that could have
happened. We are now going to
become the center of a conversa-
tion 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 uncom-
fortable for all of us, the
othering aspect.

W HO’S W HO MIC H A EL A. ELIZ A B ET H

AT HO M EL A N D’S
H AY DE N JON E S

‘SP Y CA M P’ Overseeing the NSA’s A foreign service officer Hayden

creation of domestic wiretaps
during the George W. Bush
The helpful experts — at
administration, among other
lea st those who can controversial moves, the
be revealed — included onetime CIA director has since
generals, P ulitzer distanced himself from
winners an d an exiled many conservative allies with
whistleblower his Trump criticism.
for more than 35 years,
Snowden
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 Priest
in the gallery. Oh, that’s Beth.”

T H E HOL LY WO OD R EP ORT ER 50 J A N UA RY 16, 2020

 GANSA Then the worst thing that showed the rot inside [America] say the least. But there was also the authorship of things.
could have possibly happened from that hypercorrection. a lot of care taken to make other Sometimes, I’m like, “Do we have
did. I was on the plane, going to PATINKIN This is a novel, this people the bad guys — white the right to write this?” I really
Germany to film a terrorist attack television series. Certainly, there guys, the government, the CIA. don’t know. But if we started this
on a Berlin train station when the are chapters that aren’t helpful But they didn’t get as much show today …
[2015] Paris attacks happened. to one group or another — and attention as the terrorists. GORDON Oh, we’d be pilloried!
That was the lowest point of the there was pushback on that, to GANSA We’re now deconstructing Pilloried!
show for me.
DANES There was always some par-
allel like that — but the bombings
and shootings in Paris, that’s what
made me jumpy. I didn’t know
HOMELAND: SIFEDDINE ELAMINE/SHOWTIME. SNOWDEN: BARTON GELLMAN/GETTY IMAGES. PRIEST: FREDERICK M. BROWN/GETTY IMAGES. HAYDEN: WIN MCNAMEE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES.

that we 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 hap-
pened 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
STA N L E Y A.
M CC H RY STA L
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 Production on the final season sent Patinkin and Danes
to Casablanca, doubling for Kabul.
Middle East, you’re not doing it in Barstow.
You’re going to Morocco. We should not have been filming, but we didn’t
GANSA We thought we’d go and tell one last have a choice. The crew was wearing masks. Of
story about Carrie Mathison doing what she course, we’re ending this show in an inferno.
was trained to do, serve as a case officer over- GANSA Really, the entire run of the show has
seas. So, we went back abroad one more time. asked, “Did America overreact to 9/11? Did we
GLATTER We were told we had full Moroccan compromise our values? Did we overreach?” I
military support. So, in one scene we had two don’t think the world has found an answer.
C130 [aircrafts] and a bunch of Humvees and DANES We were so much about reflecting what
helicopters as set dressing. All of a sudden, we was happening, politically, in the moment.
get a bill for $230,000. How that ages, how we perceived it and what
DANES We actually did the last days in that exposes, in 10 years’ time, will be compel-
Northridge, California. So the last shot, we’re ling to see.
filming in L.A. [in October] with raging fires. 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,
DA NA E D WA R D
but never say never.
P RIE ST SNO W DE N GANSA Howard gave his 40s to 24. I gave my

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.
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.
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.
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.

Claire Danes talks all things Homeland at THR.COM/VIDEO

T H E HOL LY WO OD R EP ORT ER 51 J A N UA RY 16, 2020