Mandy Patinkin Shaves Off His ‘Homeland’ Beard After Two Years

Mandy Patinkin had to say a last goodbye to an old friend this week.

For the past two years they shared food together, woke up together, and even showered together.

That’s right, Patinkin finally shaved off his beard, which took him two full years to grow.

The Homeland actor showed off his new bare-faced look in an appearance on Live! With Kelly and Michael on Thursday, looking almost unrecognizable. Patinkin said he couldn’t wait to get rid of the whiskers.

“I shaved it the minute I finished the last shot!” Patinkin said with a smile. “I felt like I was taking off a Mickey Mouse mask.”

Mandy Patinkin has become very involved in Homeland. Aside from adopting a shaggy look, the 61-year-old actor has become very attached to his character. He said that he was left in tears after reading a plot twist in Season 4 of the show.

Patinkin said he was originally attracted to the show by the special father-daughter relationship between Carrie and his character Saul.

“I felt a great deal for someone struggling with bipolar issues in the midst of trying to manoeuvre the world toward peace, if possible… and the writers, their 24, sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat business. But it really grew as it went along,” he said.

Patinkin said it wasn’t hard to get emotionally attached to his character on the show.

“I could see immediately the potential for it, but as I became more involved with it, the nerve it touched for me was the lost art of listening that I feel we suffer from everywhere in our country and our Congress, the world at large,” he said. “I think it asks us on a family level — both the family of Saul, the Brody family, Saul and Carrie, the FBI, the people of the United States of America, the people of the world — to try to learn to listen to each other again”

Fans have loved the character too, Patinkin said.

“The thing I loved most about it is once the show got more and more successful, wherever I go people would go, ‘Saul, Saul!’ I’d be in an airport in a foreign country and people would say, ‘Sa-ul, Sa-ul! And I took it off and, like, nobody know me,” he explained. “This is what real life is like!”

For fans sad to see the beard go, Mandy Patinkin has some solace. He said it’ll be back soon.