EXCLUSIVE: Showtime Finalizes Cast for 'Homeland'

Diego Klattenhoff has been cast in the Showtime pilot Homeland. Klattenhoff is a Canadian actor who starred in the 2008 ABC series Men in Trees with Anne Heche.

In Homeland he'll play Mike Faber, a Marine colonel and the best friend of Scott Brody (Damian Lewis), the lead character who returns after years in exile in Iraq only to raise the suspicion of a CIA agent (Claire Danes) who suspects that Brody may now harbor anti-American, jihadist tendencies.

Mandy Patinkin plays Danes' boss. And Laura Fraser co-stars as Brody's wife.

Adapted from the Israeli television series Prisoners of War, Homeland is executive produced by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, veterans of Fox's terrorism drama 24. (Klattenhoff had a small part in the 2009 season of 24.)

The pilot begins shooting in early January. Gordon, Gansa and Prisoners of War creator Gideon Raff wrote the pilot script. Dexter's Michael Cuesta will direct for Fox 21.

Homeland is the first pilot developed under David Nevins' watch as president of entertainment at Showtime. Nevins described Homeland as a departure for the premium cable network.

"It's a great psychological study like all the best Showtime shows," he said. "But it actually is much more than that in the fact that it's a psychological thriller with a real ticking clock and real edge-of-your seat elements."