'Homeland' Season 8 Updates: Claire Danes Confirms End of Series After Next Season
Claire Danes officially confirmed that "Homeland" will conclude in season 8.
On Wednesday, the lead star of the espionage drama series told Howard Stern in an interview on his Sirius XM radio show when asked about the speculations claiming that next season will be the show's last.
The host asked Danes about how she deals with the thought that the show will end next season, which she answered that she feels conflicted about it. "I mean, I'll be ready. She's a lot, this Carrie-freakin' Mathison character," she said as reported by Deadline. "It's a workout, so I'll be ready for a reprieve from that," Danes added.
The actress also revealed in the interview that she is current on the second term of her pregnancy. This is her second child with husband Hugh Dancy. The couple also shares a five-year-old son. However, her pregnancy is not expected to have an effect on the production of the show's upcoming season just like her first one since the cameras are not expected to roll for the espionage thriller's next installment before the end of the year.
While a Showtime representative said that the network has yet to come up with a decision regarding the fate of the show after the eighth season, showrunner Alex Ganza already mentioned in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that it will also be his last year for the show.
"It's definitely going to be my last year," Ganza said before the series began airing season 7 in February. "I can't speak for Claire or [co-star] Mandy [Patinkin], but it will be my final year and it will be designed to be the end of an eight-season story. If Showtime, Fox, Claire and Mandy want to take the show further, that's their decision, and we would leave some room for that to happen — if there's an appetite," he added.
In another interview with Entertainment Weekly, Ganza revealed that they are planning to come up with a plot reset to give the Emmy Award-winning show a fitting finale.
"We get to play this last season in D.C with the intention of taking us overseas for one last chapter. Season 8 will be overseas somewhere. We get to play a story with larger national stakes in season 7 and we'll go back to a smaller intelligence-based season in 8. We get to pull out all the stops this year and then get to the emotional heart of things in season 8," the show's executive producer and writer also stated in the interview.
He also mentioned that they will feature a significant time jump between the current and upcoming seasons and will veer away from any Trump administration allegories when the series returns next season. According to Ganza, they will tell a very contained story in the show's eighth and final installment which he hopes to center on events that will take place in Israel.
While other details about the last season of "Homeland" remain under wraps, Showtime is alsp upset to air the final episode of season 7 on Sunday, April 29, at 9 p.m. EDT.