Mandy Patinkin Moves On From 'Homeland'
Mandy Patinkin was not allowing any length of time to be saddened by the eighth and final season of the Showtime series “Homeland,” in which he stars with Claire Danes. The 12-episode season begins Feb. 9.
As soon as the filming ended last fall, the Emmy and Tony award-winning actor released his latest album of songs and launched a concert tour to 30 cities, including New Haven where he will perform at the Shubert Theatre on Jan 25.
In “Homeland” Patinkin plays Saul Berenson, the no-nonsense, battle-scarred mentor and father-figure to the character of CIA agent Carrie Mathison, played by Danes.
Q: Do you have a bit of empty nest syndrome following the end of shooting “Homeland"?
A: That’s a good way to describe it. I think I wisely planned this concert tour so I wasn’t overwhelmed by the end of this eight-year journey with an extraordinary group of people and a show that introduced me to the work I now do with refugees — and so many other things that have had a profound effect on my life. So needless to say it was bittersweet.
But we were all ready to move on, though it was also a deeply moving experience in those last days and moments with each other. It was very emotional for all of us. But now I have music to rescue me from something that was such a huge part of my life, and it was just time to — as the Stephen Sondheim song says — “move on.”
Q: Since the retirement of your longtime musical director Paul Ford, you’ve been working with new people.
A: I’m working with Thomas Bartlett, and he literally had no show tunes in his bean. And not just that. I said to him at one point, “Can you play me a little bit of 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame’?” and he says, “How does that go? I’m from Vermont.” I thought he was putting me on, but he wasn’t.
Thomas gave me 300 songs on Christmas Eve on 2017 — all by singer-songwriters such as Randy Newman, Tom Waits, Lyle Lovett, Rufus Wainwright and Laurie Anderson — and I listened to them all, picking 25 or so that spoke to me lyric-wise. Then we went into his studio and started hitting the record button. We put out a record in October called “Children and Art” [Nonesuch Records; also available for streaming], and that is the focus of the tour. We’ll go back into the studio after the it ends in February and start fooling around again.