SHOWTIME(R) ELEVATES NAZANIN BONIADI TO SERIES REGULAR FOR "HOMELAND'S" HIGHLY-ANTICIPATED FOURTH SEASON

LOS ANGELES - March 14, 2014 -SHOWTIME and Fox 21 announced today that acclaimed actress Nazanin Boniadi, who guest-starred in season three of the Emmy(R) and Golden Globe(R) Award-winning drama HOMELAND, will return as a series regular for season four. Boniadi plays Fara Sherazi, the strong-willed Muslim CIA analyst who Saul (Emmy and Tony(R) Award winner Mandy Patinkin) recruited for her expertise in international banking. Like Carrie (Emmy, SAG and Golden Globe Award winner Claire Danes), Fara shares a passion for justice and ends up enlisting her relatives in Tehran to help Carrie's secret mission in the final episodes of season three. Season four finds Fara in a key role working for Carrie at the CIA. The network's No. 1 rated series with seven million weekly viewers, HOMELAND begins production on season four this summer and will premiere in the fall on SHOWTIME.

Nazanin Boniadi currently guest stars in an 8 episode arc on Scandal. Her TV credits also include How I Met Your Mother, Grey's Anatomy and 24. On film, Boniadi appeared in The Next Three Days and Iron Man. She is also a human rights activist and an official spokesperson for Amnesty International USA.

HOMELAND tells the story of Carrie Mathison (Danes), a bi-polar CIA officer who plays by her own rules. At the end of last season Carrie, pregnant with the late Brody's (Damian Lewis) baby, along with her mentor Saul Berenson (Patinkin), brought a significant and much-needed win for the agency and country at large. HOMELAND tied for the most wins of any program at the 2012 Emmy Awards, honored with six wins including Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series, and Outstanding Lead Actress and Actor in a Drama Series; and has garnered 11 Emmy nominations in 2013. Additionally, HOMELAND has been awarded Golden Globe Awards, SAG, Peabody, Television Critics Association, AFI and Critics' Choice Awards. The series was developed for American television by Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon, and based on the original Israeli series "Prisoners of War" by Gideon Raff. Along with Gansa, Gordon and Raff, the executive producers for season four are Alexander Cary, Chip Johannessen, Meredith Stiehm, Avi Nir and Ran Telem. The series is produced by FOX 21.