Homeland’s Elizabeth Marvel talks the rise of the #MeToo movement and the fall of Kevin Spacey

ELIZABETH Marvel, relishing the chance to play a female US president on Homeland, shares her views on the downfall of men like former House of Cards co-star Kevin Spacey.

ELIZABETH Marvel is mad as hell and not going to take it any more.

The 48-year-old actor is having a fist-pumping moment after the rise of the #MeToo movement and the downfall of predatory men in Hollywood including former House Of Cards co-star Kevin Spacey.

Marvel is currently playing US President Elizabeth Keane in the seventh season of Homeland — the very embodiment of a powerful woman.

Elizabeth Marvel as Elizabeth Keane and Mandy Patinkin as Saul Berenson in Homeland.

But in real life Marvel has experienced a range of inappropriate behaviour that is being called out by everyone from Rose McGowan to Uma Thurman to Natalie Portman.

“I am so deeply grateful that it is happening,” Marvel says.

“Like any social change it is messy and it is complicated and it is hard and it is painful and it takes time.

“I feel like we are in the very early baby steps — but the thing that is so amazing is that the conversation is happening and that behaviour that has been so long tolerated finally collectively women are able to say ‘enough — no more’. It is an amazing moment.

“I have experienced a ‘eureka’ awakening of looking back on things of ‘oh my God, I laughed at that joke’ or ‘I smiled and walked away from that situation’ and realising that is not acceptable.

Elizabeth Marvel speaks onstage during IFP's 27th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images for IFP)

“If you scratch the surface of any woman she’d be able to tell you of many things that occurred in her lifetime. It is the price of doing business in America.”

Spacey has had a spectacular fall from grace. He was dumped from House Of Cards, and redacted from movie All the Money In the World, after allegations that in 1986 he made sexual advances to a 14-year-old boy, Anthony Rapp, who later starred in Star Trek: Discovery.

A range of men, including a former House Of Cards production assistant, have also made claims of predatory behaviour.

Marvel played Democrat candidate Heather Dunbar on the US political drama.

Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright in House of Cards. Photo credit: Nathaniel Bell

“When you are dealing with sexual predation — full-on predatory behaviour — it is criminal,” Marvel says.

“It is not acceptable and I think it is very important that anyone exhibiting that behaviour is held to account.”

Season 6 of Homeland ended with a failed assassination attempt on Keane who then had upwards of 200 people — who she believed to be conspirators — detained and put behind bars.

As season seven starts, former CIA operative and adviser to Keane, Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) is back in Washington and wants to take on the Keane administration which seems on the brink of dictatorship. One of the people arrested in Keane’s purge was Mathison’s former boss Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin).

Elizabeth Marvel as Elizabeth Keane in Homeland.

“Elizabeth is in a state of deep and intense paranoia and justifiably so because people really are out to get her,” Marvel says.

“She has to begin by dominating the playing field. She has to take control of her power again as the leader of the free world — but it is a very slippery slope from dominance to tyranny. That is some of the territory we explore.

“Working with Claire is fantastic. She sets the tone for the whole show which is why it is so good and such a pleasure to work on.

“Unfortunately we’re not together all the time (sharing scenes). Carrie and Elizabeth’s journeys are entwined but the two characters are on parallel tracks. But when we do intersect (act together in scenes) it is always a great joy.”

Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison in Homeland.

Marvel says she researched a range of politicians, including Hillary Clinton, John and Bobby Kennedy, and George Bush Jnr, when it came to creating Keane. Is there also a bit of current US President Donald Trump in there?

“In America we have an unrepentant misogynist running the country who is paranoid but ... a lot of his aggression is aimed at women and minorities,” Marvel says.

“That is where the personalities are very different.

“I get a lot of very positive feedback (about Keane). It is such a great moment to be playing a female president and it is an important moment to be doing that. I think a lot of women (viewers) feel that way.

Bill Camp and wife Elizabeth Marvel attends the 2017 Gotham Awards. (Photo by Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau)

“But it is also important to play someone who is flawed and not just some sort of female superhero even though we need those too. Keane is a very complicated person in a difficult situation.

“As Homeland tends to do, it (plot) gets very complicated. You end up somewhere totally different from where you think you are going.

Hillary Clinton was an inspiration for Elizabeth Marvel’s portrayal of US President Elizabeth Keane in Homeland. / AFP PHOTO / Brendan Smialowski

“What I would like viewers to ask themselves this season is would they be responding the same way to my character if it was a man doing the things Keane is doing.”

Sexism and misogyny is at the heart of the rise of the #MeToo movement but Marvel is confident things are changing.

“I have a young son (Silas Camp) and I look at the state of the world right now and it fills me with so much anxiety for him and his generation,” Marvel says.

“Yet there is social change happening like #MeToo that is deeply encouraging and it reminds me that progress is being made and things are moving forward.”

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