Mandy Patinkin shaves off Saul beard

By Ann Oldenburg USA Today Thu Dec 5, 2013 3:22 PM

For months, we've been watching Mandy Patinkin portray serious, bearded, CIA chief Saul Berenson on Homeland.

But on Thursday's Live! With Kelly and Michael the singer/actor arrived completely facial hair-free.

"I shaved it the minute I finished the last shot!" Patinkin said gleefully. "I felt like I was taking off a Mickey Mouse mask."

Patinkin, 61, said he has had the beard for "two years" for Homeland and other work. "I couldn't take it off."

So when he finally did get rid of it, he said, "I felt about 20 years younger!"

He promised, "It'll come back, you know."

The beard, he says, helped people to recognize him. "The thing I loved most about it is once the show got more and more successful, wherever I go people would go, 'Saul, Saul!' I'd be in an airport in a foreign country and people would say, 'Sa-ul, Sa-ul! And I took it off and, like, nobody know me."

He loved the anonymity again, saying he could walk around unnoticed. "This is what real life is like!"

As for the Homeland finale on Dec. 15, all he would divulge is, "I think you will be shocked, without a doubt, and stunned. And confused. But shocked beyond words."

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