“Why does Jessica Brody call her husband by his last name?”
Believe it or not, this is one of the most commonly asked questions by Homeland fans as well as Damian Lewis fans.
And it’s not just that fans are curious about the reason behind Jessica calling her husband by his last name but also they are quite opinionated about it. Some find it sweet, some find it weird, some find it inexplicable and I have even seen some finding it distasteful 🙂 But whatever the reason is, it is what it is. He is Brody and not Nick for us 🙂 If you think about it, the only people in the show that call Brody as Nick are the Waldens and the only person that calls him as Nicholas is Abu Nazir. All dead.
So, yeah, why does Jessica Brody call her husband Brody rather than Nick?
I have done a bit of research and I am happy to report that this question has been repeatedly asked and answered by all relevant parties in one form or another over the years!
Let’s start with a fan asking “”Why would Nick Brody’s wife always call him by his last name?” to the show creators Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon in a written New York Times Q&A:
Howard Gordon: “It’s something that’s been in their relationship from the very beginning and speaks to the love between them. We’ve heard from many military families, and it’s not that uncommon a practice.”
Then Elle magazine asks Morena Baccarin who portrays Jessica Brody in the show: “Why does your character call her husband by his last name?”
Baccarin: “I think it’s a military thing. They get used to calling them by their last name. They get used to the sound of it.”
And, finally, Damian Lewis gets the same question in an interview with New York Times: “Why does the wife call him Brody?”
Lewis: [Laughs] “Morena’s been asking that all season. Why don’t I call him Nick? I’m a boarding-school-educated Brit so people have been calling me by my last name forever. So it doesn’t seem that weird to me. I think the writers see it as a term of endearment.”
Haha so it’s not just the fans but even a cast member has constantly been asking this question… And all answers point to two things: “a military thing” and a “term of endearment.”
At the end of the day, Brody is a pet name for my most beloved fictional character ever 🙂
Having said that, the more interesting trivia about the name Brody is how the name got more popular as a baby name thanks to Nicholas Brody. So, I don’t know about you, but it turns out more than a few parents name their babies after Brody!
The Independent reports: “From Homeland, the name Brody was up by 40 per cent and entered the top 100 for the first time (despite actually being the surname of the lead male character played by Damian Lewis). The names of the show’s female characters also shot up, with Carrie and Dana rising by 200 per cent and 66 percent respectively.”
Well… Well… Well… As JaniaJania blogged earlier here and here, Nicholas Brody is not a hero. Some may call him a terrorist and other may call him a victim, but at the end of the day, he’s damaged goods. We see him killing, at least, Hamid, Tom Walker, the Gettysburg tailor, and Vice President Walden… Am I missing anyone? Oh, and he wore that vest, too!
So what can explain the boost in the popularity of Brody as a baby name?
My two cents would be what Damian Lewis has recently and rightly called “the new world of TV” at New Yorker Festival: “…there is this novelistic form of storytelling in these 12 hour seasons… it’s a place where characters are now riddled with ambiguity. So everyone is an anti-hero. Every villain has a likable side to him and every hero is compromised in some way. This is what makes TV so exciting at the moment. There is no Gary Cooper anymore or you know some bald guy stroking a cat. It’s more complicated than that.”
Yes, it’s much more complicated than that! And it seems to me, we, as flawed human beings, seem to identify more with flawed, vulnerable, or compromised characters who feel much more real than the super heroes… And, Brody is no exception. You know all about him, what he’s done and what he could have done in that bunker and you just can’t help like this guy… And it’s just standing ovation for Damian Lewis whose magic touch makes Nicholas Brody such a believable character in so much pain that you just want to cuddle him and tell him everything will be alright — at least I do — and then go and name your kid after him 🙂
Another actor Damian would not have succeeded to arrive, make us love Brody, a man who kills in cold blood, one of his best friends, kill the vice president .Thanks to his talent, we forgive him because we understand that, while being a marine, he suffers too atrocious things that Damian expresses so well, so we forgive!
For names, I sometimes laugh at me because my husband called Darman, and often I call him, Damian, without paying attention, he said, “hey, I’m not your redhead !!
Fortunately he admires damian !!
To be honest, I have not tried to call my husband Damian yet but he calls me Damianista – so he should be okay with my red-head crush 🙂 Like your husband, my husband also admires Damian deeply, and guess what he wants to write a post about how he became a Damian Lewis fan! That should be really funny so I am waiting for him to find the time to sit down and write. It’s not only women that admire Damian, men like him as well which I really like about our guy, he’s both a men’s man and a ladies’ man 🙂