‘Homeland’s Lesli Linka Glatter: In Season 5 Carrie is “Out Of The CIA…In A Relationship And Being A Mother”

As a director and exec producer on Homeland, Lesli Linka Glatter is currently hard at work on season 5. Last season, Linka Glatter dealt with recreating Pakistan from a set in South Africa, but this time she’s enjoying the luxury of shooting in Germany–the actual location of the action. “It’s amazing,” she says, “it’s the first time on Homeland that we’re actually shooting them in the country and city that we’re supposed to be based in, we’re just thrilled.”

The new season will, Linka Glatter says, begin with Carrie in a very different place from where we saw her last. “When you start off the season she’s actually in kind of the best place we’ve probably seen her,” she says. “She’s out of the CIA, she’s working for a humanitarian foundation. They deal with all different kinds of causes, as well as investigative journalism, and she’s in a relationship and she’s actually being a mother, and this all lasts for about five minutes. Poor thing. It’s about five minutes before the ghosts of her past come to get her again. What’s so exciting about being involved in this show is that every season it’s a whole new reinvention, and that’s thrilling.”

As a highly-prolific director (Ray Donovan, The Leftovers, Masters of Sex, The Newsroom, Justified, The Walking Dead), Linka Glatter is hopeful more productions will be able to return to LA in future. “Hopefully with these new tax incentives it will make a difference,” she says. “I mean, Los Angeles is the heart of the film and television business. So the fact that so many people are not able to actually work where they live is just really sad. The good news is that we are certainly in an amazing Golden Age of Television where some of the most extraordinary lighting and directing and acting and storytelling is happening.”

One factor in the industry that’s less than pleasing for Linka Glatter is the lack of female directors. “Listen,” she says, “I don’t think it’s easy for anyone to be a director, but I absolutely believe that the playing field needs to be equal. It shouldn’t be harder for a woman, and the fact that this is still an issue now in 2015 is really outrageous. When I started directing over 20 years ago, if you would have asked me would we be talking about this in 2015 I would have said, categorically, absolutely not–this will be a non-issue. The fact that statistically it’s the same and it’s when I started directing 20 years ago, that’s crazy. This is unacceptable. Again, directing is not for the faint of heart regardless of gender, but gender should not be an issue.”

Of the Emmy nominations for Homeland this year, Linka Glatter says, “Of course, the first one was Claire (Danes). Then I found out I was nominated. I was sure it was a mistake. I had to look on three other sites. But that’s the thing about being in the middle of a production–you get to enjoy it for about 17 seconds and then you go back and you start working again. That’s what it’s about. It’s about the work.”

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