Did you consider yourself a good secret-keeper before you got the role of Carrie Mathison on “Homeland”?

I would not say that secret-keeping is one of my finer skills, actually.

Are you able to get feedback from the real-life Carrie Mathisons of the world?

A group of us went to Langley to have a meet-and-greet with some people from the C.I.A. And actually my roommate from my freshman year of college works at the C.I.A., and she was at this meeting. That was totally whacked. It was just bizarre to re-encounter each other there.

How did that conversation go?

There was one long table that said “Homeland” facing another long table that said “C.I.A.,”and we all stared at each other, and neither of us could really speak about what we were doing.

There was no horse trading, like, “I’ll tell you what happens to Brody if you tell me . . . ”?

It was a little senseless and futile. We couldn’t share any plot points, and they couldn’t tell us about anything they were working on.