'Homeland' star Claire Danes: 'Playing Carrie is exhausting'

Published Jun 14 2012, 16:05 BST  |  By Morgan Jeffery

Claire Danes has admitted that she was "apprehensive" about playing Carrie on Homeland.

The actress told the Los Angeles Times that playing the unstable CIA agent on Showtime's hit drama can prove "exhausting".



"The pitch she's on is so high, and to maintain that hyper-vigilance is exhausting," she said. "But it's fun. I like her - she's smarter than I am, and definitely more bad-ass than I am. It's fun to wear her cape."

Danes added that she was initially worried about maintaining Carrie's "intensity" across multiple seasons.

"I wasn't sure about sustaining that... for possibly seven years," she explained. "I was unsure if it was almost too relevant and would be exploitational and confronting and too distressing.

"But, ultimately, I had not encountered a character that was so dynamic and specific for a very long time."

The 33-year-old suggested that her character's "CIA-speak" ultimately proved to be the most challenging aspect of playing the role.

"The good thing is that Carrie's under pressure a lot of the time, so if I'm under pressure it's useful," she suggested. "But still, there are times when I just want to jab a pencil through my ear."

Homeland exec Howard Gordon recently dropped hints about Carrie's role in the second season.

"Season two is going to start about five or six months after season one ended," he revealed. "Carrie will not be in the intelligence service, and the world will be at a boiling point."

Homeland will return to Showtime in the US on September 30. Channel 4 has picked up the rights to air season two in the UK, with a late 2012 broadcast planned.

> Damian Lewis: 'Homeland writers often don't know where story is going'

Watch a video teaser for Homeland season two below: