Danes said a major season 3 scene with Damian Lewis was nearly derailed by a set issue.

Claire Danes reveals Homeland production mishap during ‘really graphic’ death scene

Danes said a major season 3 scene with Damian Lewis was nearly derailed by a set issue.

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January 28, 2026 11:48 a.m. ET

Claire Danes and Damian Lewis in 'Homeland' season 3 finale 'The Star'. Credit:

*Homeland*'s season 3 finale "The Star" was an emotional wrecking ball for viewers of the popular Showtime drama, but star Claire Danes has revealed that shooting the episode's major death scene also proved to be a logistical obstacle thanks to a mishap during production.

In a new interview on Amy Poehler's Golden Globe-winning *Good Hang* podcast, the *Beast in Me* actress opened up about shooting Brody's (Damian Lewis) harrowing death by hanging, which involved a crowd of people stringing the character up and suffocating him while he dangled from a large crane.

"We'd reimagine ourselves every year," Danes told Poehler of making the show, which often changed settings with each new season, from Afghanistan to Pakistan to even New York City and Berlin.

When Poehler inquired about the difficulties of making such an ever-evolving show across its eight seasons and 96 total episodes that aired between 2011 and 2020, Danes pointed out a memorable mixup in the third season in 2013.**

Claire Danes in 'Homeland'.

Kent Smith/SHOWTIME

"Especially when Brody died, that sequence," she highlighted. "It was also really rough, just really graphic. They really went there. Like, come on. It was so intense."

Danes continued, "He dies on a crane, but then the crane, when we were filming, broke! So, we were really *hung up* by that."

The actress went on to recount other challenges posed by the show's rapidly shifting production locales, which had Danes and her family temporarily living in multiple different cities around the world.

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"That was in Morocco, but, yeah, the first three seasons we were mostly in Charlotte, N.C., which was standing in for D.C., and we'd shoot a month in Israel or Morocco or something," Danes remembered. "When we had to really redefine the show in a more macro way, we then became this traveling enterprise. So, we were shooting in Cape Town [South Africa] for half a year, which was standing in for Palestine and Afghanistan. There was a year in Berlin, then a year in New York."

Danes said that filming domestically "was actually very strange" and "weirdly stressful" for her, all because "people expected me to go to dinner" because she was, technically, back at home.

"Actually, I can't do this and live my life. There was something nice about being on location and being allowed to give myself entirely to it, because I didn't have energy to spare," recalled Danes. "That was almost the hardest season, because there was this illusion that I was living my life, and I couldn't!"

*Homeland* followed Danes as CIA agent Carrie Mathison, who fell in love with an American war prisoner (Lewis) who was, unbeknownst to the public, turned by al-Qaeda.

Though production proved to be difficult, at times, for Danes, her performance won two Emmys, a pair of Golden Globes, and a Actor Award.

Watch Danes discuss shooting Brody's big death scene on *Homeland* season 3 in the video above.

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