Homeland‘s casting directors has revealed that they signed British actors as “a last resort” after Americans snubbed roles within the show.

In a report with The Independent, Homeland‘s casting directors have revealed that they wanted American actors all along and resorted to British actors when the American actors they targeted turned down the roles.

The role given to Damian Lewis was one of the highlighted areas of the casting with the show’s casting director, Junie Lowry-Johnson saying, “We were initially looking at well-known actors [and] people didn’t want us. A lot of them passed, and you’d be surprised who.”

It appears as though the casting directors had an exact list of who they wanted, but unfortunately couldn’t hire those they wanted. However, Homeland has seen a massive amount of success since it debuted and surely the actors they do have, certainly in Lewis and Claire Danes, have done a terrific job by taking home Golden Globe and Emmy wins.

Libby Goldstein adds, “[David Harewood] was the last person cast. We couldn’t find a person to play the CIA’s deputy director of counterterrorism, because the part was too small. The role wasn’t big enough on the page to attract the level of actor we needed, so we started looking in England,” confirms Lowry-Johnson.

It’s fascinating to know that the majority of the cast were never first choice and despite this they have done an amazing job thus far with the series. We imagine though that the cast who were picked were most likely still high on their agenda, but it begs the question as to why American actors would turn down the roles, especially when the series is backed by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, who have an incredible respect within television.

Would you change the current casting of Homeland? Who would you have preferred to have seen cast? Or, is the present cast absolutely perfect?

Homeland season 3 premieres on Showtime on September 29.