Matt Hurwitz and Alex Gansa - Homeland Revealed

Unit and gallery photography by Ronen Akerman, Frank Balthazar, Didier Baverel, Jim Bridges, Jackson Lee Davis, Patrick Ecclesine, Nadav Kander, Bob Leverone, Frank Ockenfels 3, and Kent Smith. Additional behind-the-scenes images by Gillian Albinski, Jose Cabrera, Rob Chand, Ken Collins, Lesli Linka Glatter, Art Director Geoffrey S. Grimsman, Tom Hohman, Matt Hurwitz, Michael Klick, John D. Kretschmer, Patti Podesta, Kelly Rubottom, Todd Spencer, and Meredith Stiehm. Additional credit: , Photo by Pete Souza/The White House.

Homeland & 2014 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Artwork 2014 Showtime Networks, Inc. A CBS Company. All Rights Reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN 978-1-4521-4292-0 (epub, mobi)

Hurwitz, Matt.
Homeland revealed / written by Matt Hurwitz ; foreword by Alex Gansa.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-4521-2840-5 (hc)
1. Homeland (Television program : 2011 ) I. Title.

PN1992.77.H615H88 2014
791.4572dc23

2014013820

Design by Jacob Covey

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, California 94107
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I am a writer. My title says Executive Producer, but I am, at the end of the day, a writer. And there is no greater feeling for a writer of television than to deliver fifty or so pages every few weeks to an extraordinarily talented group of actors and filmmakers and to watch them transform those pages into an episode better than he could have ever imagined. Such has been my privilege for three seasons on Homeland.

Every successful television show is a miracle. So many forces conspire against its survival from the very start, and so many hard choices must be madenarrative choices, casting choices, staffing choices, programming choicesany one of which can prove fatal. I know that people dont like to hear success explained away as luck, but in the case of Homelands debut, there is simply no other explanation. Everything that could go right did, and everything that usually goes wrong didnt.

I am often asked: Why do you think the series is so popular, what makes it work? I often say: I wish I knew. But in my heart, I know the answer. Claire Danes and Damian Lewis. They are the twin suns at the center of the Homeland galaxy, and, at the risk of exhausting the metaphor, it was the gravitational force between them that compelled our fans to invest so deeply in the story from the very beginning.

Since that first season, many gifted people have joined the Homeland teamLesli Linka Glatter, Dave Klein, Patrick Harbinson, Rupert Friend, F. Murray Abraham, Tracy Letts, Nazanin Boniadi, Zuleikha Robinson, Shaun Toub among them. But the framers of the initial twelve episodes deserve special mention here, for they built the show from the ground up.

Of all the people who put a significant imprimatur on Homeland, Michael Cuesta has received the least public recognition. And Id like to set the record straight here. Of his many great directorial gifts, perhaps Michaels greatest is his ability to design scenes that convey the impression that real life is happening. He made watching Homeland an intensely voyeuristic experience. If not for his incredible eye and impeccable taste, the series would have been a far lesser enterprise.

Superstitious, I read every first draft of every Homeland script in the same chair, taking notes with the same pen, starting at exactly the same time: 5:30 A.M . And, of all the drafts Ive read, I will forever remember four. Alex Carys Grace, Chip Johannessens Clean Skin, Henry Bromells The Good Soldier, and Meredith Stiehms The Weekend. Not because they were necessarily each writers best work on the show, but because they were each writers first work on the show. And because, by the time I had turned the last page of each script, I knew that I had hired a major talent. They have been called brilliant, they have been called a murderers row, they are the finest group of writers I have ever sat in a story room with. My debtand Homelands debtto them cannot be overstated.

Michael Klicks producing work on Homeland has been nothing short of Herculean. He created a studio in Charlotte out of nothing, put together our crew there, and has bravely led them for three years. I may be the showrunner, but he runs the show.

Homeland creators Howard Gordon (center) and Alex Gansa (right) visit with Homeland Revealed author Matt Hurwitz in Gordons office on the Fox lot.

Our supporting cast was also stellar, especially Mandy Patinkin, Morena Baccarin, and Morgan Saylor. Farther down the call sheet: David Harewood, Navid Negahban, David Marciano, James Rebhorn, Amy Hargreaves, Jackson Pace, Diego Klattenhoff, Sarita Choudhury, and Jamey Sheridan all took vastly underwritten roles and fleshed them out in front of the camera with professionalism and panache.

Praise must also be heaped upon our two Directors of Photography (Chris Manley and Nelson Cragg), our two Production Designers (Patti Podesta and John Kretschmer), our two Costume Designers (Marina Draghici and Katina Le Kerr), and our five Casting Directors (Junie Lowry-Johnson, Libby Goldstein, Judy Henderson, and Craig and Lisa Mae Fincannon).

Few things are more humbling for a writer than to watch how music can elevate an ordinary scene into something transcendent. Sean Callerys brittle and beautiful score accomplishes this magic every week. His main title theme is, in my opinion, a work of genius.

Katie OHara, our co-producer in charge of post production, rarely sleeps during the season, and her handpicked trio of editors (Jordan Goldman, Joe Hobeck, and Terry Kelley) consistently deliver cuts of breathtaking clarity and artistry. It is in their editing bays and on the dub stagewith our brilliant sound mixers Nello Torri, Alan Decker, and Craig Dellingerwhere the final draft of each episode is written.

My wife Lauren is my secret weapon. She notes every draft and every cut of every episode, and the long hours weve logged together talking story over the dinner table and on walks in the hills behind our house have shaped the series in important and immeasurable ways.

Homeland would not exist without the Israeli hit show Hatufim and its creator Gideon Raff, nor without WME agent Rick Rosen who was the first person to see potential in the material as an American series.

Twentieth Television Co-Chairmen Dana Walden and Gary Newman and Fox 21 President Bert Salke are our most ardent fans and partners. The level of studio support they provide this show is unprecedented in my experience in the entertainment business.

Finally, however, the decision to put Homeland on the air came down to one man. David Nevins. Newly minted as President of Showtime, he gambled and chose this project as his first. Major thanks to him and to his super-talented lieutenants Gary Levine and Randy Runkle, who give real meaning to the title Creative Executive.