Just two days ago, we brought you news that Showtime had landed House of Cards star Corey Stoll and Damages actress Laila Robins for roles of the upcoming fourth season of its espionage thriller series Homeland. Now, we’ve learned that another talented actor has joined the cast of the show: Life of Pi star Suraj Sharma.
The casting news comes courtesy of Entertainment Weekly, which reports that Suraj will take on the role of “Aayan Ibrahim, a Pakistani medical student who crosses paths with Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes)” when she’s assigned to the volatile and dangerous CIA station in Istanbul. The part is described as “heavily recurring.”
Homeland will be Sharma’s first small-screen gig. The actor, who broke out as the title character in Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning survival adventure Life of Pi, recently appeared alongside Jon Hamm in the baseball drama Million Dollar Arm. He doesn’t have any other confirmed projects lined up, though rumors have circulated stating that he will lead a Bollywood film called Umrika, starring alongside The Grand Budapest Hotel actor Tony Revolori.
Production on season four of Homeland will kick off later this month in Cape Town, South Africa. The season is set to take place in both Istanbul and Kabul, and will find Carrie dealing with a new terrorist threat. In the show’s next set of episodes, set to premiere this fall, Carrie will also be dealing with motherhood, seeing as she recently learned she was pregnant with the child of Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis), a former lead character shockingly executed at the end of last season.
Most of us can agree that Homeland got off track in season 3 with some messy, poorly handled plotlines. Now that Brody is gone, however, there’s a chance for the show to get a fresh start (though, with his baby in tow, Carrie will definitely still be dealing with the fallout from the character’s death). Stoll is in for a guest arc, Robins has signed on for a major recurring role and now Sharma is also on board for multiple episodes, so it might be time to start getting excited about Homeland again.