‘Homeland’ Star Elizabeth Marvel Talks Playing a Female POTUS

The real-world election didn’t turn out the way so many thought it would, but this weekend in TV land, the United States gets a new, female president: House of Cards and Law & Order: SVU star Elizabeth Marvel joins Season 6 of Homeland as the newly elected POTUS, Elizabeth Keane.

Marvel, who’s also an alum of Fargo, Person of Interest, Law & Order, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, talked to Yahoo TV about going from presidential contender on Cards to election winner on Homeland, about how viewers have already embraced her as the latest TV president, and how all those L & O series have been the “lifeblood” for New York actors.

Related: Ken Tucker Reviews ‘Homeland’ Season 6

Yahoo TV: We don’t find out a lot about President Keane when we meet her in the Homeland season premiere, but there are definite hints that she’s very prepared to make her mark and completely unafraid to take on any challengers.
Elizabeth Marvel: Oh, yes. And it’s getting deeper and darker and wilder the further we go. I just read [the script for] 610, and I’m like, “Oh, my God.” I didn’t see any of it coming.

I love to hear that from a cast member, that something in the storyline shocked you, and especially that close to the end of the season.
Totally. Each TV show is its own animal, and on this one, they don’t tell you. With Cards, they sat me down before we started shooting anything and explained the whole character arc in the season and what was going to happen. With this one, I find out as the scripts arrive, so I have no idea what’s coming. It’s really fun.

Related: Winter TV Preview: The Scoop on 25 Returning Shows

What is that like for you? You’re playing this pivotal character, and you’re filming in your hometown, New York.
Well, it’s like the holy grail. It’s just sublime. Being a woman in my 40s, getting to play the president-elect on a show where the writing is fantastic and my fellow actors are the best in the business … I get to work with the best actors every day, and I get to stay at home and sleep in my bed at night. It’s incredible. As a feminist, it’s a very empowering thing at this moment to be [portraying] a woman as president of the United States. It’s quite exciting and very hopeful and very positive to me. It’s also very interesting because a few weeks ago, I had to give this speech on the street outside a hotel in midtown [NYC], and we were shooting, and there were crowds gathering around on the street to see what we were doing. People were listening, because it was a very long speech that I had to give, and when we cut, people were like, “We wish you were president! We would vote for you!” A whole pile of New Yorkers were shouting. It was very funny.

This really may be the most interesting time in TV history to be playing a female president.
It really is. Two or three days after the election, Martha Raddatz was on [Homeland] to do an interview with me as the president in a scene, and so we got to talk about, “Wow, this is so fascinating,” because on one hand, it’s like, “Oh boy, the president-elect is not a female. Does that negate our story?” In another way, we’re like, “This makes it even more radical.”

Related: ‘Law & Order’: Our 25 Favorite Guest Stars

We’re going to get to know President Keane slowly, it feels like, but we see right away, when she meets with the intimidating Saul and Dar Adal, that she is not intimidated by them at all.
Well, it’s such an interesting thing being a woman in rooms of power. First of all, the rules are different for us. They just are, but if we’re in the room, then we’ve already won. That’s incredibly empowering and provides one with so much confidence, because you’ve got a seat at the table, and [Keane] does.

It’s also fun that you played presidential contender Heather Dunbar on House of Cards — going up against uber-intimidating Frank Underwood — and then went on to another series and became the POTUS.
It’s totally wild, and it’s very interesting because Heather Dunbar and Elizabeth Keane are such radically different people. They’re totally different political animals. They’re totally different temperaments, different agendas, different foes, and yet I embody both of them, and that they are back-to-back. … And it’s very interesting that I had to go to another network to win.

Will you return to House of Cards?
I honestly don’t know. I don’t think the door ever closes at Cards. But I have no idea. I would love to rejoin them, but I don’t know if my current TV presidency would allow that. [Laughs]

You have three Law & Order series on your résumé. Was there a different vibe when you were on the various sets?
Not terribly, because the machinery is in place for what it is and they all function kind of in the same way, except that the folks who were the captains of the ship were different, of course. Depending on their temperament, yes, there is a different side to each, but as far as how it works, it’s all very much the same.

How much importance do you think this entire franchise has, going all the way back to the original series, for New York actors specifically?
Oh, it’s the lifeblood for New York actors. Leslie Odom Jr., who played Aaron Burr in Hamilton, was playing a priest and I was playing Rita Calhoun, the defense attorney, on SVU. That’s also what is so much fun about those shows, that you hang out with everybody from the New York theater scene. We’re all in the stew together all the time, and so the conversations and the banter and just the energy and the fun that happens on those sets is so fantastic, because the talent is just ridiculous. It pays our rent and it makes us able to do shows like Hamilton before they become Hamilton or whatever it is that you’re workshopping or whatever Broadway or off-Broadway theater you’re working in. They’re these great wealthy institutions that support the artists of New York.

You have played an attorney and you’ve been on the flip side, playing an art forger, for instance, on Criminal Intent. Do you have any real standout, favorite memories of your time on those sets?
Gosh, I remember when I was playing the art forger. I remember I had this big scene where I had to go into this gallery, and there were these huge paintings on the wall, like 8 feet by 12 feet, these massive canvases. They gave me this straight razor, and I was supposed to walk in and just start slashing these canvases, and this was when I was more at the beginning of my career. I hadn’t done a ton of TV at that point, and [the character] was a woman in a very extreme state of mind. I just heard “Action!” shouted. I was just seeing red and I went flying into this room with the straight razor and just started hacking at these canvases, going crazy, like Sid Vicious unleashed. Everyone was screaming and freaking out, because it was a rehearsal. They didn’t have that many canvases. It was all fine and they replaced it, and I settled down and it all went quite well, but I will always remember that day.

Nowadays, I do this recurring role, attorney Rita Calhoun, on SVU, and Mariska [Hargitay] has become a wonderful friend, and it’s always such a blast to be filming on the streets of New York. To New Yorkers, we’re part of their life. We’re part of their experience, so they just feel completely at ease coming and talking and hanging around. It’s such a different, friendly, wonderful experience shooting that show on the streets of New York.

Homeland Season 6 premieres Jan. 15 at 9 p.m. on Showtime.