Photo The actress Claire Danes, who plays a C.I.A. agent on "Homeland," and Jeh Johnson, the secretary of Homeland Security, in a SoHo restaurant. Credit Hilary Swift for The New York Times
If there are water-cooler moments at the White House, odds are good that the actress Claire Danes figures into them. President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. have declared themselves fans of her geopolitical TV thriller, "Homeland," which recently began its fifth season on Showtime.
Now add Jeh Johnson to the list; the secretary of Homeland Security admitted to binge-watching every season.
Ms. Danes, 36, looked surprised at that disclosure, but cult classics have long been her strong suit. Her first starring role, which was broadcast when she was 15, was on the short-lived but much-discussed series "My So-Called Life," about the delicate contours of adolescence.
After a number of big-scre en films, notably Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo & Juliet," opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, Ms. Danes returned to TV in the award-winning title role of "Temple Grandin," a movie about the autistic animal behaviorist.
From there, it was a short skip to Carrie Mathison, the brilliant and bipolar C.I.A. agent of "Homeland," for which she has won two Emmys, two Golden Globes and the apparent admiration of the Obama administration.
Photo The unlikely pair discussed the challenges of youth, the complexity of intelligence and why spies and actors tend to marry their own. Credit Hilary Swift for The New York Times
Mr. Johnson, 58 (whose first name is pronounced "Jay"), is well equipped to review the show. A litigator at the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and its first black partner, he was chosen by the Clinton administration to be general counsel of the Air Force.
He later served as general counsel of the Defense Department from 2009 to 2012, where he played a role in authorizing drone strikes, responding to WikiLeaks' release of Pentagon materials and dismantling "don't ask, don't tell," the former policy on gays in the military.
He has been secretary of Homeland Security since December 2013, leading an agency of 225,000 employees that is charged with protecting the country from terrorism and natural disasters, as well as overseeing cybersecurity and the nation's borders.
Over dinner in the private room at the Dutch restaurant in SoHo (a fall salad and roast chicken for Ms. Danes; burrata and hanger steak for Mr. Johnson), the unlikely pair discussed the challenges of youth, the complexity of intelligence in our modern world and why spies and actors tend to marry their own.
Philip Galanes: In honor of Claire's breakout role in "My So-Called Life," and because everyone's adolescence is pretty hideous, let's start with middle school.
Claire Danes: It was horrible. You know, I went to middle school with Morena Baccarin, who plays Brody's wife on "Homeland," and we were both tortured by the same bully.
PG: Why would anyone torture you?
CD: There's this point in school when girls are supposed to shut up. And I didn't get that memo. I really liked school. I was the "ooh-ooh, call on me" girl. And I was bullied for ignoring those stupid social politics.
PG: I'm surprised you didn't find a way around that. Your work is so psychologically acute.
CD: I was perceptive, but so frustrated. Then I became this vigilante, the defender of the kid getting picked on. That caused problems, too.
Jeh Johnson: This is in New York City?
Photo Ms. Danes calls herself a "professional empath." Credit Hilary Swift for The New York Times
CD: Yes. My mom's solution was for me to switch schools. She was trying to help, but inevitably, the "new girl" is conspicuous and vulnerable all over again.
JJ: I was born here, too. When I was 6, we moved to Wappingers Falls, N.Y, about 70 miles north of here. My dad was an architect, and he ended up teaching at Vassar for 37 years. But I was a big underachiever in school.
PG: Was that rebellion?
JJ: It was a predominantly white, mostly blue-collar town, and I didn't have a lot of African-American role models. I became a C /D student.
PG: D's? But you're a superlawyer.
JJ: Oh, a C was a gift in my house. My mother was beside herself. She would lecture and yell when I wouldn't do my homework. But my dad was cool about it: "The boy will get it together."
PG: What flipped the switch?
CD: I wasn't a complete misanthrope. I had a great time in elementary school in this gifted program, surrounded by wonderful nerds and weirdos. And I loved Yale for as long as I was there. I learned to hang out with kids my own age, and that "mean girl" is just a phas e.
JJ: What got me motivated was my dad's idea that I go to Morehouse College in Atlanta. It's an all-black, all-male school. Martin Luther King went there. The most famous person in my class was Spike Lee. And I really caught fire. I was so inspired by the people around me that I went from C's and D's to straight A's by the time I left.
PG: Did race fit into that?
Photo "It's through movies and TV that social issues become norms," said Mr. Johnson. Credit Hilary Swift for The New York Times
JJ: When I got to Morehouse, I was no longer in the minority. Race was irrelevant, and I found in myself someone I didn't know: a person interested in politics and national service. Then I came full circle. I went to Columbia Law School and ended up marrying the girl next door from Wappingers Falls.
CD: No! Really?
JJ: I met her when I was 7. She saw me through all my underachieving. I asked her out for two years until she finally said yes, then we were engaged nine months later.
PG: Let's turn to your wor k. When you're acting, Claire, your face is like this finely gauged barometer for emotion.
CD: Oh, my Silly Putty face.
PG: Is that empathy with the characters you play or tons of research?
CD: It just so happens that feeling registers strongly and clearly on my face. It's not anything I've honed. Though I have thought a lot about performing. I always wanted to, for reasons I still can't explain. And I was lucky to grow up in New York, where I got training. But I learned on the job. I'm a professional empath.
PG: Still, it must have been hard to find Carrie Mathison?
CD: I read everything I could about the C.I.A. and the bipolar condition, which was a strange syllabus. And I have a lot of therapist friends. But the greatest resource was YouTube: watching videos created by people who are bipolar, when they're up at 4 in the morning in that euphoric manic state, really needing to talk.
PG: I love the expression "professional empath." It makes me think of a speech you gave recently at Westminster College, Mr. Secretary, where you called on political candidates to tone down the hatred in this mean political season. That would be a feat of empathy, too.
JJ: Sure. But it's also a desire to encourage those in public office, or seeking it, to be responsible. There are many examples in our history of overheated rhetoric leading to fear and prejudice and government overreach. My own grandfather, a sociologist, was dragged in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. He said he wasn't a Communist and explained that American Negroes were patriots like everyone else.
PG: I get the danger of fear-mongering. But if a candidate looks at illegal immigrants and truly sees rapists and criminals, isn't it better for voters to know that?
Photo Mr. Johnson, center, testifies before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Credit Chris Kleponis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
JJ: It's better for candidates to suggest ideas that are responsible, not ones that are incapable of being executed. People are influenced by what their leaders tell them. And bringing the level of rhetoric down brings the temperature down.
CD: Even if Trump isn't elected, he has a big megaphone now. And the way he's communicating is having an impact.
JJ: He's pushing the whole debate to the right, to the point where other candidates are saying things you'd never imagine them saying six months ago.
CD: He's changing the language.
JJ: Immigration is the most difficult issue I've ever dealt with, and I've dealt with some tough issues: drones, gays in the military, WikiLeaks, Guantánamo. But immigration is hardest because there are so few people willing to talk and build consensus. Everybody's firmly made up their mind. It's a polarized issue.
PG: You both give politicians a lot of credit. Isn't the best way to deal with immigration to make a powerful movie or TV show about immigrants? The reason we have gay marriage now is because of …
CD: "Will & Grace."
JJ: Have you ever seen the movie "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"?
CD: It's criminal, but I haven't. Or "Star Wars" or "The Bicycle Thief."
JJ: Well, Sidney Poitier goes to this white family in San Francisco, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. He wants to marry their daughter, whom he met in Hawaii. This is 1967, when interracial marriage is still illegal in many states. The daughter wants their blessing right away. And Spencer Tracy says: "Have you thought about the children? They'll be mixed race. That will be hard for them." And Sidney Poitier responds: "Your daughter thinks that one of them is going to grow up to be president of the United States, and he's going to have a colorful cabinet." And that's just what happened: At that moment, living then, was a biracial 6-year-old, born in Hawaii, who would grow up to be president.
CD: That's beautiful.
JJ: And he has a colorful cabinet. But you're right: It's through movies and TV that social issues become norms.
PG: And you're right about political discourse. It's a complex world.
JJ: But more people have learned about targeted lethal killing from Claire than me.
Photo Ms. Danes as Carrie Mathison in Homeland. Credit Stephan Rabold/Showtime
CD: We have a big audience, that's true. But we're in the land of make-believe. "Homeland" has given me deep respect for the people who do this work in real life. How do you make those impossible decisions?
JJ: Frankly, I've become more religious since I've been in national security. I use my best judgment, and I've promised myself to be as honest and forthright as I can be when I'm sitting with the president.
CD: But what's happening in your gut?
JJ: Oh, you can never abandon your gut. But what I like to do when I have an important decision to make is gather the people whose judgment I trust, and hear a range of views before I decide.
PG: I hate to sound ridiculous, but that's a bit like making television.
CD: TV is a special medium for actors because we're in conversation with the writers. We're discovering the thing together. It's dynamic. But our big decisions are not like his decisions, obviously.
PG: Is that why spies end up marrying spies, and actors marry actors?
CD: It's true. When I spent time at Langley, talking to these C.I.A. spooks, and I say that with affection, they do marry each other. Actors, too. We're itinerants, traveling all the time. We work long, erratic hours. It's hard to communicate with people who don't understand.
JJ: I love to read the wedding announcements in the Style section. So often, it's a lawyer marrying a lawyer. I think it's about who you meet.
CD: But I also think that intelligence case workers have a lot of information that they can't share. So keeping it in-house, marrying another agent, is useful. That's a fact.
JJ: I married a dentist.
PG: One of the most heartbreaking parts of your character on "Homeland" is her fear of being with someone because she can't trust herself not to hurt them.
CD: That bro ke a bit at the end of last season, when Carrie realized her condition might not disqualify her from intimacy or happiness. But for a long time, I thought of her as Edward Scissorhands.
PG: Isn't it more human than that? I'm not bipolar, but there have been stretches where I didn't feel worthy of love.
CD: I struggle with that still, and I'm in a very happy, nine-years-long relationship.
JJ: I didn't have a solid, sustained romantic relationship until well into college, if not after. But I always had my parents.
PG: Speaking o f parents, which you both are, does the world become infinitely more frightening once you have a child?
CD: Absolutely. We have a very young son. I shouldn't say this, but my husband recently developed a fear of flying. I think it's because when you feel turbulence, your first thought is: the baby!
JJ: But yours is still in the nest. Once your children get their own wheels, their own ability to get around, you worry about them by a factor of five or six.
[Ms. Danes puts her head down on the table in despair.]
JJ: They have anxieties , they have fears, they have bad relationships. And you suffer through all of it as if it were your own pain — except it's worse, because it's your child's pain, not yours.
PG: Do you think your children worry about you?
CD: It's funny. We were doing press in L.A. last week for the new season of "Homeland." And I'm on these big billboards, looking terrified. And my nanny sent me a video of my son saying, "Mommy look worried." And I thought, "You'd be worried too if the Russians were after you." But he was concerned that I was concerned.
JJ: My kids don't worry about me too much. They know I've got these [Secret Service ] guys out there.
PG: I did see a lot of earpieces.
JJ: I'm going to ask you a huge favor, Claire: Can we call my daughter so she hears your voice? She'll freak out. She'll faint.
CD: Of course!
