Claire Danes Reflects on Playing 'Homeland's Carrie Mathison: 'She Was So Daring & Such A Badass'

Claire Danes is officially saying goodbye to Carrie Mathison on Homeland tonight, when it airs its’ series finale on Showtime.

Speaking with The Guardian, the -year-old actress opened up about how she was going to miss the character on the long-running show.

“Oh my gosh, so much,” Claire shared. “I loved her. It was just so nice to play the smartest person in the room, somebody who was so daring and unapologetically ambitious and such a badass. She’s not really going away.”

In a separate interview with CBS News, she revealed that the role was a dream for her: “It’s been great for me as an actress, ’cause so often — especially coming out of my twenties — you know, I was playing ingénues or characters who were completely defined by their romantic experience, or the guy!”

Claire also opened up about her final scene with Mandy Patinkin and the chemistry between them.

“I think that’s a wonderful and surprising love story,” she recalls of their characters’ relationship. “It’s not one that we see depicted all that often in pop culture: mentor and mentee.”

Claire continues, “In our first read-through the chemistry was really powerful and palpable. He looks uncannily like my best friend’s dad, who kind of raised me and is a wonderful person but, if [he] got mad at you, you felt pretty shitty. I think that helped: very strong Pavlovian response already built in! And he’s [Patinkin] just very good at what he does. Our partnership grew and deepened over time.”

“It’s not a casual scene,” she added about their final scene together. “I think for me that was my cathartic moment when I realized it was over, because to say goodbye to it in its entirety is just too abstract and too huge. There were some tears – many of them – and we just hugged each other for a really long time.”

The final episode of Homeland airs tonight, April 26 at 9/8c on Showtime.