Elizabeth Marvel cast as president-elect in Homeland season 6

Elizabeth Marvel is joining the Homeland cast in season 6. The House Of Cards actress has been cast to play president-elect Elizabeth Keane, in the sixth season of Showtime's political drama.

According to a report in Variety, Keane is a former New York senator set to ascend to the presidency. Her character is described as "bright, charming, lively, and, if the need arises, blunt".

Filming for Homeland season 6 will begin in August 2016, in New York. The upcoming season of the critically acclaimed series will take place during the two-month period between Election Day and the swearing in of the new POTUS.

Previously, showrunner Alex Gansa told Entertainment Weekly, "The whole season takes place between Election Day in November and the inauguration of a new president in January, during this strange and interregnum where a very fragile transfer of power takes place between the outgoing president and the incoming president-elect."

Gansa then went on to talk about a "dangerous time" in America's democracy. "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.

"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."

Claire Danes and Rupert Friend will return as fan favourite characters Carrie Mathison and Peter Quinn who will return in season 6. The premiere date for the upcoming season has not been announced yet, but the show is rumoured to return sometime in January, 2017.