Claire Danes has worked her way into the hearts of the audience with her portrayal of Carrie Mathison in the iconic television series, Homeland. The 37-year-old has received two Emmy awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and two Golden Globes for Best Actress (Television Series Drama) for her seminal turn as the CIA operative with a bi-polar disorder. 
In this interview, Danes talks about what goes into inhabiting the character, her tryst with real-life spies and the relationships forged in television. Excerpts:

Q Carrie Mathison’s character is really complex — the way she battles bi-polar disorder is quite striking. How do you go about playing the part?
I researched it pretty extensively before we began the first season, and I do a kind of refresher course at the start of every subsequent one. I read a lot of books on the subject and meet people with the condition.  The best resource for me, ultimately, was the Internet because there are a lot of vlogs that people with the condition keep. 
I think it’s probably a very isolating experience — they’re up in the middle of the night, wired, unable to sleep, really wanting to talk, which is what bipolar people do. So they talk into this void, into this camera. Being able to observe people in their manic states was very useful, because it’s one thing to read the theory behind it, the science behind it, but it’s another to, kind of, get a sense of what the frequency is like, and what the affect is like, and it’s kind of infectious, so you watch it and you just kind of catch it. So when I’m playing manic scenes, I tend to tune in and get that contact high and carry it onto set. 
I’m very moved by these stories I’ve read along the way — it’s a very challenging disorder and I have a lot of respect for people who grapple with it.  It can be very destructive if you’re not really responsible about treating it properly. You can also lead a constructive life with it, but you do have to take it very seriously and it’s very intense. Look, we’re taking huge liberties here. I think that there’s no way she (Carrie) would have been able to survive like she has in the show — it’s a piece of entertainment and I accept that. I’m borrowing from truths but I admit that we are elaborating.

Q Do you relate to Carrie?
Not really except the fact that we both have the same hair! It’s really fun to play her though because she’s so unapologetic about striving for the things she wants.  So often women have to equivocate, or put other needs before their own, and she just doesn’t do that.  She’s not defined by her sex, she doesn’t put up with shit, she doesn’t conform to conventional social standards and that’s very liberating. I take a kind of perverse thrill in that.  
It’s interesting this season. She’s in a very different mode of being and she’s very emotionally disconnected. I’m finding that kind of lonely as a performer to play, like I feel a little shut out…But I honour where she’s at on this arc and this journey, so I’m getting through it. I think she’s going to get through it. This will break; it’ll have to but she’s alienated right now. 
 Q Did you do research what life is like in the CIA and that part of her job?
Yeah I did. I did the bulk of my research before we shot the pilot, and it was a real crash course. I worked with a woman who took me to Langley and I spent an afternoon with a group of her colleagues and she had very carefully selected a team of people who she thought represented different kinds of operatives at different levels of experience. They were amazingly candid and open, and you know, I asked them why they were making themselves so available and they said you know, we’re always recruiting and it’s not very often that we are rendered in pop culture. We want to have a say in how we are going to be represented because we want to entice more people to come and help us do what we do and I was like “wow” even that is so forthright! It’s so stupid but I really left that day thinking, “Oh my god these spies exist! They do really spy things!” It’s all about human relations and role playing — which is, not a far cry from what we do.

Q Are you obsessive like Carrie?
Am I obsessive? No. I mean not to the detriment of my life. I think we’re both earnest and care a lot.

Q There are several different directors on the show. Every director has their own vision of how they want an episode to go, how does that affect the tone and character depictions?
Leslie LinkaGlatter is our producing director, so she directs four out of the 12 episodes and oversees the directors that she’s hosting. It’s hugely important to have her guidance, I know her style and her sensibility and we’re great friends.  And that’s one of the things I love about television — you get to develop very deep working relationships. In a movie, you just start to get a rhythm, start to become fluent in the little language and the little culture that you create and then it’s over, you wrap, and you think, well what was all that for? 
But in television we get to continue and build on that history and I think it’s a really effective way of working because there’s a short hand you can develop.  Most of the directors this season I will have worked with before; I think there are two that I hadn’t worked with. That always takes some adjusting, but I mean…it’s nice to have some variety. 

homeland season six 
premieres on 16 january at 9pm on star world and 
star world hd