As Homeland enters season four, Mandy Patinkin says the cast has become like a huge joint family. She talks about the criticism the series got last season and thinks that one has to learn from the good and bad feedback
Now in season four, how has the overall Homeland experience beenIJ
Our show, for me, and it always has been from the very first episode, is about nurturing the child. The metaphor for me is Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes), who holds the hope, even in her job with her difficulties as a human being, of bringing peace to the world, and literally learning how to listen to unlike minds, to rekindle the lost art of listening. The journey really is to eliminate the enemy and make the enemy your lover so there are no more enemies, there are only lovers. I know that seems a little far-fetched in a play that’s so on the edge of your seat, and so much about terror and fear, but that’s what the world is…
Saul and Carrie (Claire Danes) have a complex relationship, and towards the end of season two she says to him ‘Do you trust anybodyIJ You’ve got to find a way to trust each other again…’ Are we going to see that at all in season fourIJ
I think it’s no different than a marriage. I think in a marriage, you enter into it hoping and believing you can trust each other, but every day of your lives tests if you’re honest. So I don’t think it’s ever resolved until one of you leaves the earth. I think that each person would like it to be resolved, but I don’t think that’s how human beings work. And I also think each person defines trust differently. That’s a real key, how Carrie defines the word trust and how Saul defines the word trust individually and globally is different. And how they define the word trust toward each other is different.
There has been some criticism about the plot at time or the storyline. How does that affect youIJ
Clearly you’re saying to me there’s been criticism over the third year; I’m well aware of it. My attitude is that one of the gifts of this, what seems to be this more novel form of television, it’s more like a novel. TV has always unpeeled itself at its best like a slow onion, but this is a more novelistic nature that we’re into now.
Regarding your marriage in the series, how does this go, because in the end it felt like it was resolved and almost happy, but then the last question in season three was going to Washington or New York, so it seemed like everything was fine…IJ
I think within the first few minutes you see Saul in Washington and then New York. So I don’t think Saul’s life really is about his marriage to this work and to this surrogate child, that’s his real marriage, and I think we all know that, and the rest is the complicated part of life. It’s not that he doesn’t have love for Mira, but it just literally doesn’t take up as much physical, mental and emotional part of his cumulative time. He has made the choice to give toward other areas of life and there lies the problem with his marriage.
You’re in fourth season now, and Claire Danes, Damian lewis and yourself obviously have an emotional rapport with each other. What is it like working with each other and having this level of comfort as wellIJ
It’s the best. When you become familiar with each other, you become a real ensemble, you start to work together in a much more comfortable, more profound way...the more that company stays together, the more the camera can focus in to look real and see something past just what the writers are writing, how are you together, because I do think something grows. The tree has been in the ground longer, it has different roots…you start to see things, feel things, it’s really a much richer, more fertile, more enjoyable playground to meet in than when you have to meet somebody on the first day and pretend you’ve been together forever. The more you’re together and you live these experiences together, you have real life stuff so it becomes simpler. There’s a natural gift of simplicity that’s intrinsic to being together with somebody.
What do you prefer — film, television or theatreIJ
When you’re born in the theatre, in show business, as I was first from the theatre and it’s my first love, no matter how well a scene goes in front of a camera, you miss the audience reaction. You miss applause, live reaction. So you have to create that for yourself…you have to generate your own belief in what you’re doing, you don’t need a response. I would think that many different performers, whether you’re a musician, a dancer, a writer, an artist, a painter — you’re doing it for the audience.
(The show will be broadcast on Star World Premiere HD from October 6)