'Homeland' season 6 will feature female president-elect

When Homeland returns for season 6, a woman will be headed to the White House — no matter which real-life candidate wins the election this fall.

Speaking at an event in New York on Tuesday night about the Showtime series, star Claire Danes revealed Homeland will have a female president-elect. Danes said the character won’t necessarily be like Hillary Clinton, who locked up the Democratic nomination for president this week, but instead is “kind of a composite of all of the different candidates and a kind of — not rebellious necessarily — but she’s challenging norms and is a little threatening for that reason.” Danes added the character “gets along with Carrie Mathison pretty well.”

Last month, it was revealed Homeland will tackle the election in its new season. According to a release from Showtime, season 6 occurs during “a strange, transitional time in the halls of government filled with anxiety and different competing interests, where a very fragile and complex transfer of power takes place between the outgoing president and the incoming president-elect.”

“There is this strange period in America where there are 72 days when it’s not exactly clear who’s in charge, and there is a new president that needs to be educated on what it means to be president,” showrunner Alex Gansa told EW last month. “That is a very complex transfer of power filled with all kinds of anxiety and different competing interests — How do I get the ear of the new president? How does the new president elect deal with the president that’s going out? — and it’s a dangerous time in our democracy.”

Showtime recently revealed Homeland season 6 will be pushed to January 2017, rather than debut in the fall.

—Reporting by Joey Nolfi