Damian Lewis Reveals Some of the Secrets of ‘Homeland’, WSJ, Speakeasy, October 14, 2013

Damian Lewis as Nicholas “Nick” Brody in “Homeland.”After being absent from the first two episodes of this season’s “Homeland,” Damian Lewis‘s character Nicholas Brody anchored Sunday’s installment, titled “Tower of David.” In a telephone interview, Lewis discussed the strange setting of the episode, the clues it offers to the broader story, and the sorry state of his character, who spends most of the episode in wrenching physical and mental pain.

The fugitive Brody arrives in Venezuela, bleeding from a bullet wound he somehow suffered along the way. He finds himself in a high-rise slum in Caracas, known as the Tower of David after the financier David Brillembourg who originally funded the incomplete skyscraper that was eventually populated by squatters. A gang who lords over the community–and who has a mysterious link to Carrie Mathison–saves Brody’s life but also holds him prisoner. Meanwhile, Carrie is trapped in a limbo of her own in a mental hospital thousands of miles away.

Where was this episode shot?

We were in Puerto Rico. Amazingly, the building was found by a producer who just typed into Google “abandoned building in San Juan,” and this thing came up that looks not dissimilar to the Tower of David in Caracas. We found a shorter version of it, and special effects took care of the rest. Everything you see in it was dressed by the art department and made to look like a functioning slum run by gangs.

In the story the setting seems as much like a place in Brody’s mind as it does a real building.

I think that’s right. There is a dereliction to the building and to Brody. A lot of the concrete structure he finds himself in is reminiscent of the cell that he was first held in by Abu Nazir, so there are unpleasant associations for him. It does have a hallucinatory feel to it because he arrives there gushing blood and is immediately jacked up on painkillers and shortly thereafter he’s on heroin. There is an an element of a tone poem about this episode, sort of like a stand-alone movie. Viewers might be wondering what it has to do with the first two episodes and what’s going on back at Langley, but it will all be tied up. From a geopolitical point of view, anyone who wonders why Brody’s in Caracas and how that might tie into the story later just has to think “Hezbollah.” That really will be the glue that ties everything together. Hezbollah operates a lot in South America and has a lot of money in the mosques, and the Islamic communities there donate a lot of money.

And yet Brody’s host has a connection to Carrie, which made me think he might have been a CIA asset at one point. Am I wrong?

I think that will be a dead end for you to go down. I think that’s one of these “Homeland” moments where they suggest that he might be one thing, but I don’t think they’ll ever take the time to explain it. I think they’ll want to pursue other stories. He’s in charge of this tower and this slum, but he’s clearly beholden to Carrie in some way. Brody has a $10 million bounty on his head, and this guy can’t claim that. He’s more interested in playing ball in some way than getting the $10 million.

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Who else knows that Brody is there?

If you’re wondering how Brody is going to get back into the central story line, they’ve got to find him. There is this sense that he was passed like a baton from one man to the next. And he’s gone so deep into the network now that nobody knows where he is. And he doesn’t know where he is and that’s symbolic of Brody–he’s never been quite sure of who he is.

With the shaved head and lots of abuse heaped you, you look a little like Bruce Willis in the “Die Hard” movies, I thought. Just from certain angles.

I’m going to take that as a compliment. I think they slightly resent that I’m a Brit cast in the main role in a hit TV show, so they’ve been systematically humiliating me over the last three seasons. Pissed on or beaten up.  Naked in a shower or made to look like Bruce Willis.

Your character spends so much this episode in extreme pain. How do you approach that part of the acting?

Under my happy-go-lucky exterior, I’m torn up inside, John. I research pretty thoroughly, so most of it’s stolen. It’s imitation. If you’re dealing with something as serious as recovery from loss of blood, there’s a medical verisimilitude that you need to get right. Reading, video, meeting people in person if I have time. The Internet is such a resource. You can bone up on anything. If I had the right page open I could probably do open-heart surgery.

Brody searches for sanctuary in a mosque in Caracas, but is turned in by the imam. Will that be a turning point in his Muslim faith. 

It’s always been a fine line for the writers. The initial act in season one where he wanted to blow himself up, the intention was that it came from a more personal place of revenge. He’d never actually been successfully radicalized by Abu Nazir. That’s a nuance and you can take from that what you will. Brody, in spite of being turned back and seemingly working for the CIA and falling in love with Carrie, has maintained his Muslim faith. That has stayed with him and is sincere and personal to him. So I think he goes to this mosque believing that he can find sanctuary. And this imam is unconvinced and thinks he is a terrorist and turns him in. But I don’t think Brody’s faith will desert him. It’s a betrayal by one man who is scared and has misunderstood him. It’s actually a rather brilliant stroke by the writers, because it’s a moment to play into the stereotypical view of a Muslim cleric harboring a known terrorist. But even though he knows Brody is a Muslim, he still reports him to the police because he thinks blowing up the CIA was the wrong thing to do.

You were absent in the first two episodes, and the producers have long warned that Brody could be killed. Are you a little worried that they’re just going to leave you in that hole with a heroin needle?

Brody needs to be rescued. He’s found himself in another hellhole. He’s a prisoner of his circumstances, of the decisions he made as a younger man. He needs to get out. It might not happen in one episode but Brody will be absolutely central to this season and its unraveling, so don’t go away for too long.