Trivia / Homeland

• California Doubling:
  • Charlotte, North Carolina, doubles as DC and Northern Virginia. That is why so many cars lack front-mounted plates; NC does not require it.
  • Tel Aviv doubles as Beirut in the first two eps of Season 2, as one of the show's exec producers is Israeli and barred from Lebanon as a result. The Lebanese government were not happy about the latter's portrayal.
  • Cape Town, South Africa doubles as Islamabad and rural Pakistan in Season 4.
• Content Leak: An unfinished version of the Season 3 premiere was leaked roughly a month before it aired.
• The Danza: David Harewood plays David Estes.
• Dawson Casting: Morena Baccarin, 31 at the time of filming, has a 16-year-old daughter in the show. She's supposed to be around the same age as Brody, who is played by the 40 year-old Damian Lewis.
• Enforced Method Acting: The goodbye letter from Peter Quinn that Carrie reads in Season 5 was drafted by Rupert Friend himself on the showrunner's request. Claire Danes's reaction to said letter was genuine, and the producers loved it so much that they decided not to kill him off that season.
• Fake American: Damian Lewis, a Brit, as Sergeant Brody. David Harewood, another Brit, as Estes. Rupert Friend, yet another Brit, as Quinn.
• Fake Nationality: Suraj Sharma and Nimrat Kaur^note In a cruel irony given that her character plays a Pakistani ISI agent who aids the Taliban, her father was killed by a Pakistani-supported Kashmiri militant group. are Indian and Shavani Seth is a Brit of Afro- and Indo-Caribbean descent, all playing Pakistanis.
• Non-Indicative Title: Despite the title, the series is about the CIA, not the Department of Homeland Security.
• Playing Against Type: Melissa Benoist, an actress associated with goody two shoes roles on Glee and Supergirl makes an early career appearance as a wanton party girl having a naked audition to be part of a sheikh's harem.
• Real-Life Relative: Star Claire Danes' husband Hugh Dancy plays John Zabel.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Brody was initially supposed to die at the end of the season, but Damian Lewis' performance was so good the ending was rewritten.
  • Laura Fraser, also known as Lydia Rodarte-Quayle, was originally cast as Jessica before replaced by Morena Baccarin.
  • Peter Quinn was supposed to die in the Season 5 finale, but the producers were so touched by Rupert Friend's goodbye letter to Carrie that they brought him back for Season 6.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: The writers came up with the ending a day before filming started. They couldn't settle on a good reason for Carrie to stay in Moscow until the day before, when they decided that she should be writing an expose of the CIA.

---