>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." >> the american prisoner of war had been turned.

he was coming home to carry out an attack. >> do you believe to this? >> he told me moments before he was executed. he was cooperating at the end. there was no reason for him to lie. >> you think i'm that p.o.w. >> there's no one else it could be. >> claire danes is here. she is the star of "homeland." she plays the role of carrie mathison, a brilliant but troubled cia officer. here is a look at the series. >> blue is what is available. >> green is necessary. it does not make sense.

it is not an unreasonable request. my green pen is dry. is this so hard? i asked for a green pen. >> she should go to her room. the doctor will be in. she is very focused on the green. the avenues here have methods and patterns and priorities. a single sniper, he never has and he never will. he goes big and he explodes. >> slowdown. slowdown. >> there may be no threat. >> that is quite a theory.

>> it is incomplete. he is not even critical. he is a pawn, a piece of no importance. we have very little time. we have to contain it. >> the doctors coming. >> the important thing now is the green pen. >> i'm pleased to have claire danes back with me. we have done a program recently here with a group of people talking about the third golden age of television. it is such a great time for actors, directors, and for the audience. tell me about how "homeland" has fit into that for you as an actor. >> a lot of that has to do with the nature of cable television and how many liberties it affords creative people. i started getting really excited

again by the show "the wire." that came out quite a while ago. i was so profoundly impressed by that show. it got me eager to participate again. and break through the screen in order to be a participant. yeah, people are now watching television like they read novels. they can really burrow into a series. they do not have to wait for the commercial break. they do not have to be at their couch on thursday at 8:00. >> you can sit there saturday morning and watched three episodes in a row. the quality of the materials keeps escalating. it is really thrilling. >> "homeland" is a great success.

good writing, good acting. it has a very interesting narrative. it is more than that. what makes it such a success for so many americans? and when they don't like it, they get angry. talk about it. >> when i read the pilot, the ending was just so, so well constructed. i was greedy for the next one. i got the sense that that would be the case with every episode. it is really provocative subject matter. it is incredibly relevant to what is happening right now.

that made me anxious initially because i didn't want to prey on people's vulnerabilities. i didn't want to prey on the heightened, intense feelings that they have sometimes. when i met with the show runner alex gansa, and howard gordon, it became really clear that they were incredibly skilled and they were experienced, skillful, and decent. they were not going to be jerks. >> it has also that elements of, you don't really know who is good or bad. >> you don't. everybody is flawed. everybody is trying their best.

their ideas of what best is are often conflicted. it tries to capture a new kind of anxiety and insecurity that we as a nation are coming to terms with. i don't think there has been a representation of that in television. >> doesn't still surprising in the third season, what carrie does? >> it does. we just finished filming the finale of the third season five days ago. it is very raw. >> tell us. >> i have not seen any of the show in this third season. i filmed it, but i have not seen it played back. it is always different when it has gone through the editing process.

>> is different in terms of watching it there. >> it is very different. we are actually filming it and i watched it and it like, oh, all right. it changes, it goes through a filtering process. whenever it was destined to be. it is still very fresh and alive and the writers need to make it that way for themselves. >> what you mean, for themselves? >> they want to remain engaged. >> it has to be interesting for them. >> they are always finding ways to reimagine it and reinvented. i think every season will have a different character.

a different nature and telling. a slightly different context. we will get to experience these characters who we are becoming familiar with in new environments. >> tell me about who carrie is in your mind. >> she's a superhero. she is a true patriot. as people are in the cia. they are not kidding about that. >> it is about country. >> it is about country. >> it is almost about "anything for country." >> that is what the show means. it is a very lonely, deeply lonely and isolating profession. you know, they take incredible

risks, personal risks, on behalf of their country. they cannot tell anyone about it and those risks. except for people within that world, which is pretty tiny. >> as you obviously know, and i've talked to people about this, there is a wall of heroes at the cia building in langley. they cannot tell the public stories of people who did her heroic things. >> their failures are well- publicized and their successes are not. >> you talk about the character. is there one person that your character represents in terms of the way the writers write characters? >> there is a woman who is very successful. a case officer who had been the model for carrie.

she is a little bit less insane. >> so carrie is insane. >> she is. a little bit. this woman who has served as the model, met me for lunch one day just before i did the pilot and offered whenever insight she could. she organized a field trip for me to go to langley. she asked for colleagues to spend a couple hours in a room with me sharing their experiences. it was so wild. it was so riveting. it is one of the most mind blowing -- >> did those things work their way in?

>> they definitely work their way into my performance. when i mention that my character would be bipolar, they all laughed. >> is that because there were bipolar people among them? >> they thought it would be so impossible that anybody with a condition like that would get through. >> what you think about the bipolar part of the character? >> it is useful in terms of the telling of our story. >> you get to spread every acting when you have. >> it also serves the genre. she is an unreliable narrator. she is paranoid, but actually has reason to be paranoid. it is an exciting paradox.

>> she says at the beginning of every episode that she is torn, she regrets the fact, she is haunted by the fact that she could have stopped -- >> it is useful for me to think about her condition in relation to her work. she never takes her health and safety for granted. she is sitting on this bomb so to speak. she is not afforded the kind of luxury that most of us are afforded. she cannot take her health for granted. she cannot be complacent or naïve. so it is easy for her to extrapolate and maintain a kind of hypervigilance.

i think of her as edward scissorhands. she is very aware of the kind of havoc that her condition can wreak in intimate relationships. >> she cannot become close to people because she has enough knowledge of self. >> she has made a lot of sacrifices. she does not feel that she is capable or deserving of real closeness with another person. her life is already pretty emotionally barren. therefore it is easier for her to give it up in order to do her very risky work. >> her lover's the cia? >> yes, her lover's the cia. >> manic-depression.

it is said that -- how did you get closer to understanding that mind? >> it was a really, really fascinating process. before i did the pilot, i gorged on a lot -- any bit of material i could find on the subject. i met with a woman who is bipolar and has written books on it. i talked to some of my friends were psychologist and have bipolar patients. ultimately, the most useful resource was the internet, of course. >> youtube. >> there are a lot of bipolar people who have these vlogs -- video logs. it is one thing to read about the condition, another thing to

be able to observe the behavior of someone who is in a manic state. you know, so that was really pretty help for me. it helped me make sense of their mannerisms and hear the rhythm of their voice. >> when you accepted the hasty pudding woman of the year award, you jokes that you were working your way through dsm-v. >> when i was in college, i assumed i would be a psychology major. then i realized there was a lot of lab work involved and i was less interested. i have always been interested in psychology. i am just delighted to have an excuse to think deeply about that in the context of acting.

>> how is carrie evolving? >> she is having a rough go of it this season. she is in a pretty bleak place. all the characters are actually. the cia did blow up last season. we are, uh, recovering from the devastation. >> and also wanting revenge? >> and wanting revenge. it is interesting because one of our key writers on the show died in march, just as the writers were starting to design the season. it was already going to be a fairly mournful season. but with that loss, it really influenced the writers as they were writing.

i think they were sad. [laughter] they were really sad to lose their friends. >> sadness permeated the story. >> sadness permeated the story. it was a very dark season. >> some people are not happy about this. >> yeah. >> we have brody in venezuela and you under stress. >> nobody was having very much fun. the long game that they were playing. it was a bold choice on the part of the writers to share that so many episodes in, halfway through the season. >> it is almost like they want to see you and brody together. >> they do. they will. [laughter]

>> be patient. >> we are, uh, they are, starcrossed lovers. anyway, it is one of those perfect, impossible loves. >> you broke my heart you know. was that easy for you? for fun? because of you, i question my own sanity. i found myself admitted to a mental institution. i lost my job, too. i lost my place in the world. >> you harrassed my family. >> the truth? you came this close to blowing them into a million pieces.

>> i did not wear a bomb. >> did you even think about me? >> one more time, why are they desperately attracted to each other? >> i don't think they can even articulate it. they see a -- they recognize the pain in each other. disenfranchisement and otherness of the other. they have great empathy for each other and compassion. >> and they believe in each other? >> yes, i believe they believe in each other. they have a working relationship. they have a common goal. ultimately their lives are, you know, dependent on each other.

so, yeah. >> it is such a wonderful acting challenge. the stakes are preposterously high. she is a huge risk taker. she is always right. that is a delightful thing to play. >> i told you so, i told you so, i told you so. >> they do make her go through the mud. i am drained and tired. i really need to disengage for a little while.

return to my infant. >> you need some quiet time. >> i need serenity. i am not a method actor, i feel it i am not, but there is something to -- i have to post a lot of very dark feelings and thoughts for many hours a day and it does something to one's chemistry and technology i think. in about a month's time, it will occur to me that i am actually fine. i am pretty happy. [laughter] i am not what i play on tv. >> it is like you've come to live with the idea that you are manic depressive and cannot love.

it saves you time to get away from that to find piece that you have in your real life. >> exactly. i love her and i admire her and i wish i could be heard so many ways. >> i love her. i admire her. i wish i could be her. you love her because of the power she has? >> i love her because she is ultimately a virtuous person. she will do the right and good and brave thing. she is self-sacrificing and she's deeply responsible. she is terrified of harm and injury -- of inflicting harm and injury on anyone else. she will do anything to save decent people from evil.

they're very extreme, but it is true. >> she is also smart. >> she is very smart. she does not suffer fools or apologize for her intelligence. and that is really a lot of fun. women don't get to be that way. i think her condition affords her that too. i think, actually, when you are there is a certain point mania. there is an arc when the mania sets in. when you are hypomanic there's a sweet spot where you are the smartest person in the room. where your brain is working faster and more efficiently. you are able to connect the dots at an astonishing rate and gain insight. amazing world and all that.

it affects the body. likes it affects the muscles and everything else. but so is a fascinating thing to explore. damien plays a junkie in that season and kind of wonderful watch them make sense of that is a weekly as an actor in to see

him go through or render the experience of withdrawing from the drug. >> mandy, the relationship there. tell me about that. >> he is a virtuoso performer. he is a musician. a brilliant one. i think he brings his musicality to the role. >> in the first season, when i was trying to make sense of what it was, how do you run an interrogation? i was talking to mandy about that. how are you, um, doing this?

he said, i listen to the subject. i will close my eyes and just hear the spiel and find the truth in the sound. that was a musician's take on it. >> thank you. nice to see you. back in a moment. stay with us. >> my name is nicholas brody. i am a sergeant in the united states marine corps. i have a wife and two kids who i love. by the time you watch this, you will have read a lot of things

about me. about what i have done. >> damien lewis is here. he stars in "homeland." in sergeant nicholas brody, "homeland" may have given us the most problematic leading man in tv history. here's a look at the character. >> i was brainwashed. people will say that i was turned into a terrorist. taught to hate my country. i love my country. what i am is a marine. like my father before me and his father before him. and as a marine, i swore an oath to defend the united states of america against enemies both

foreign and domestic. my actions today are against such domestic enemies. the vice president and members of his national security team who i know to be liars and war criminals responsible for atrocities they were never held accountable for. this is about justice. justice for 82 children whose deaths were never acknowledged and whose murders are a stain on the soul of this nation. >> it may surprise viewers to learn that the man who plays primarily american roles is british. i'm pleased to have damian lewis at this table. >> thanks for having me. >> anything surprising about this american army marine who

was so much a part of this very popular television series, playing an american as a british actor? >> i constantly play americans. >> this is not the first military person either. >> it started with "band of brothers." i was cast as a needle in a haystack. they were going to shoot a portion of it in the u.k.. they knew they were going to use british actors. i don't think they expected to find major winters in england. but they did, for whatever reason. >> what is this series? it had its predecessor series in israel. why is it so relevant? what is it about?

>> i have a small theory about the sort of cultural life here in the states if i may. it is predicated on fear. i think there is a tremendous fear of the other. it is brought home to roost in a devastating and tragic way in 9/11. america sort of realized to what extent they had not gotten a grip of what was going on across the way there on the other side of the world. the degree to which animosities had set in. i think "homeland" taps into that. "homeland" has to do with something further down the line. a fear and uncertainty of that which we do not know.

i find it here a lot, i find it here perpetrated in commercials all the time. there's a fear of disease, we are sold medications. there's a fear of political groups, different ethnic groups. i think people like being scared. people like being scared and i think this -- "homeland" has a pessimistic worldview, a bleak worldview, that everywhere, every institution and individual is damaged. we do the best we can with those damaged individuals and institutions, protecting us from those other things that we know little about. >> i agree with all of that. much of it is also grey. there are these very strong hopes of combating conflict, especially about the other, but there is also the greyness of

the characters. they have personality, but we do not know where the center is. you know that carrie is patriotic. we do not know about you, other than what is at the core is strong. >> i think, you know, there has been a growth in the antihero trend. the flawed hero. again, i know 9/11 is a bit of the hope that we all hang our hat on, but it is probably true to say that the antihero has grown and then. >> that is a perfect example in "breaking bad." >> yes. there was a time when someone would fight the bad guys and he was unequivocally good. now we have these more complicated -- carrie mathison is this really a smart,

intuitive maverick woman who at the same time is damaged in many ways partly due to her mental illness. she is an unreliable narrator if you like. brody is a man who joined up to become a marine, to understand his country, to fight for his country as a result of 9/11. he was caught and incarcerated and tortured brutally, both physically and mentally. his life was never the same again. he was turned into an unstable agent. at times irrational, and certainly damaged. certainly in the first season, and the first season represented the threat no question, and everyone was terrified about what was happening with this guy. what is he really thinking and what will he do to us. at the same time, and this is

the brilliance of the writing, we were beginning to sympathize with a character who had been sent to war and his family missed him terribly, who was a regular joe with two kids a dog and a nice job before he went away. he represented the everyman. he was the ordinary american joe. yet we were terrified of him at the same time. towards the end of the season, when he does the unspeakable, which is strap on a suicide vest and put himself in a situation with the vice president where you think he will commit a terrorist act, even in that moment, there are some people thinking, you can do it. you can do it. they're rooting for him. >> why? >> because he was very clever in

creating a villain. another villain, a complex character, an ambiguous character. the vice president, because of the way he was trying to hush up the drone strikes, and there was considerable collateral damage this show continues to be a liberal show in that way. it will ask the audience to ask hard questions of themselves. what do you really believe in? who do you back? is it justifiable to sanction drone strikes knowing that there'll be collateral damage? >> that is part of the public debate today. >> absolutely. especially with their current president. here's a guy who we have rooted for the best we've come to know him, nicholas brody.

he cannot strap on a suicide vest and killed wife president kill the vice president. and these other children were killed. but we have some sympathy for his motivation. that is what "homeland" does. it converges three different stories and gives you multiple points of views. you spend enough time with each character to understand their point of views. >> another way too, you hate this person because of what they do, but we want you to understand him. how was he able to be a force of so much evil? >> exactly. as an actor, i am never afraid to take morally ambiguous characters. i am never afraid to take out

right evil characters. people who seem to perpetrate evil acts. that is because the challenge is even greater than to make the audience understand why you acted the way you did. i suppose that is a post- freudian take on acting. pre-freud, shakespeare of course could not find it necessary to explain evil. he did not find it necessary to give it back story. he just presented evil. he wrote at a time when there was good in the world and then there was evil in the world. >> you did not need to understand it, you just saw it. >> you just saw it. >> there's also love in this. explain that to me. is it simply two people who are both wounded, two people who need some small place where they might want to touch?

>> i've spoken about it before as two broken people. i think that is what you are getting at. >> i'm trying to get at how you see it. >> there is a recognition between them absolutely. they are damaged souls. brody comes back to a life that he has been gone from for long time, and his experiences have been so different that there is no way for them to connect. he meets this woman who is reckless and dangerous and you see a darkness in her soul, in her eyes, but you also see something very heady and intoxicating. that is true of people with bipolar condition often. they are incredibly exciting to be around. having done research into ptsd, combat veterans who come back

from the war, there is a sense among a lot of them that no one will fully understand what they have been through. i give myself carte blanche to really behave how i see fit, and no one has a right to judge me because of what i have seen. they both have an element of that, i think. >> i've earned the right to do this because of what happened to me. >> if i want to trash that trashcan over there or the bus shelter over there or break the windows and throw bricks through the window because of my experience of war, no one has the right to stop me or to judge me. in some of them, there is that sense of entitlement. none of you will understand fully what i've been through. i think you see that recklessness, that frenzy if you like, as an exciting thing if we recognize it in someone else.

they connect there. being drawn in like a loft to a flame allows her to free him and escape in the night. she does that completely off the book. she contravenes every rule going and she swore personal reasons. it's why it works so well. people act. >> why is someone attracted to someone that they know is like that or whatever is in? they need each other. >> there was a moment in the first season where she was the only one who believed he was

guilty. now of course she believes that he is innocent. >> does love cloud her vision? >> you would have to say that love elucidates moments for her in a way that it cannot for the others. it is also a danger to her. you would have to say both of those things. they are very few men, honest mistakes to make. where brody is concerned, she works from the heart. that is not true all the time, a lot of the time, like the episode last year were she breaks brody down and convinces brody to come back to the cia. we are led to believe that she

has successfully turned back for the second half of season two. she is ruthless in that moment. she does not say, brody dear, you must see this the right way. she grills them -- him using all her skills as a cia operative. >> du two talk about these characters the way that we have talked about them? >> the answer to that is that it is different with each actor. i do not have a method that i prescribed show up on set and demand that people go through a process with me. it is part of their skill of coming together with a group of people and you know you will have to do complex and intimate work.

and you'll have to develop a shorthand where there is a trust and an understanding that is developed quickly between you. claire and i work in a similar way. we kept quite a lot to ourselves. we trusted that our commitment to the work and how engaged we were and how ambitious we both were free to be the best thing he could be, and when we came in front of the camera together, there was total and asked commitment to focus. it was a thrilling coming together. also, there was quite a lot that was perhaps adversarial about those two in the beginning of the show. quite a lot was being kept closed to one's chest. there was this recognition

initially, but there was also this cat and mouse game. these two doves going around each other. sometimes actors find that helpful to keep things to themselves. we never came together and went through lines. i think in a certain way, we want to just we wanted to just keep that familiarity. >> it adds to the dynamic of the performance? >> yes. i have never spoken directly to claire about it. that is just what i have deduced from it. >> you said that he was a vigilante.

>> when i was offered this job over the phone before it started, i was very concerned i was going to be asked to play an all-american boy who found allah and became a terrorist. i thought these were slightly lazy associations and not something i would want to pander to given a good chance there are people who actually believe that's what happens. i believe we achieve that. it means that we have

successfully radicalized brody. brody does not come back to the united states in the name of allah. in order to prepare for some kind of terrorist act. >> he comes back to find justice for this boy. >> he is a marine and he loves his country. he cannot allow drone strikes and the collateral damage of drone strikes to go by on remarked upon. it is because of his damaged condition, having been tortured physically and mentally for two years before it generally starts to work on him and manipulate him. he's at a point where brody believes that he will never go home again. he makes his home in the middle east. he believes that that is it. you will never see his family again. there is this feeling, i am incarcerated, but i am free to

do the rest of my life. do you see these things coming out? >> if you've ever had a chance to talk to alex ganser, the creator of the series he is -- [laughter] he is a student. he really had the espionage genre by daring to have a literary field with his

characters. he dared the espionage lover to read my thriller. you will want to know what happens next, but i'm going to take time to investigate the inner lives of my characters in a more literary novel kind of way. my descriptions will be slightly more literary. it won't just be bang bang bang. i think "homeland" for us was that. if we can get halfway to being as good as john le carre, alex would be delighted. >> you wanted to know what it's

like to be overwhelmed by that kind of understandable impact on your brain and your emotions. >> this essential if you're going to play -- it's important if you're going to play people with existing conditions. you owe it to them to portray it as faithfully as you can. otherwise, everything you do and the show around you will lose credibility. i read a lot of journals and books and biographies by people who had suffered domestic abuse from parents in the home, people who had suffered rape abuse, sexual abuse, how they felt afterwards. it is only type of trauma. i went to the internet, on youtube, and looked up soldiers talking about it. >> in their own words.

>> the helplessness they feel when they come home and the abandonment. i hope that we show some of that. and we get that equally with islam. i did as much research as i could. i went to a local mosque in london. not the mosque where a radicalized imam came from. but the west london mosque. the guy there was part of the pr, and he was so welcoming. i got a sense of what it is. it is good pr for him.

i was welcomed wherever he went. >> thank you for coming. thank you for joining us. we will see you next time. ♪

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