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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axe Files, with your host David Axelrod.

Mandy Patinkin is many things. He's a celebrated actor known to many for his role as Saul Baronson in the long-running Showtime series, Homeland.

He's a world-class singer and he's a passionate activist for progressive causes.

I sat down with him this week to talk about his life and career, the issues he cares about, and the campaign that will end Tuesday for which he is energetically organizing voter turnout.

When that Republican convention was over on Thursday night, I just sat and watched it. I took it in and I woke up the next morning, energized. Like I'd never been energized in my life.

I spoke to Gideon, my son. I spoke to everyone and we know. And I said, let's get going. We called every organization. We said, let's get out every drop of information we can.

Let's tell people what they can do. Nobody should be immobilized. Everybody should have something to do. There are ways to write letters. We've got 80 already printed out. Many more coming. There are ways to get out and vote early. You can do that. There are ways.

Yes, he's absolutely right. I mean, you absolutely have so many options. If you don't want to talk to somebody on the phone, write a letter. If you don't like writing, you can do a phone call.

I'm saying it's only very important. And you know what? It feels really good. You can have letter writing parties, phone banking parties. The thing is that this is being a participant in your democracy. If you give a shit about democracy, you have no excuse not to participate in saving the shit out of it.

That was actor Mandy Patinkin and his wife Catherine Grotee who've been on a kind of social media tear lately urging people to vote in Tuesday's election with a slew of entertaining videos that have gone viral. I urge you to to go on to Twitter and find them. Mandy Patinkin. It's it's good to see you.

Thanks for having me. Oh, David. I just saw you tip your head down a little bit. Yes, I wore this for you. You wear a white socks and you not just me, David, but my dad. I know I know about this. I'm going to ask you about this. Good. Good. Good. It's not so. It's not just pandering though. I don't even if it is pandering makes me happy. It brings my father into the room.

We'll talk about that. But before we do, just tell me tell me how this all came about. Why did you decide to go on this sort of social media blitzkrieg here?

Well, I knew nothing about social media until 2015 when I went. We were filming Homeland in Berlin. And I think it was the fifth season. I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure. And it was right at the time. The very first episode was took place in a series of games.

It took place in a Syrian refugee camp. And it was at the exact moment that 125,000 refugees were trying to get across the Balkan route to get to Germany for sanctuary.

And I looked at these photographs in the newspaper as I just arrived in Berlin and was starting to shoot that day in the fictional world of homeland. And the real world was passing in front of me. As I thought those are my ancestors. That's my grandparents and those kids are me and my unborn children.

And I just, oh my God, I have to be with them. And I had six months of shooting to do. And the minute I finished that last shot, I got on the plane. And I went to, I went to Lesvos Greece with the International Rescue Committee to start paying attention and listening to the needs of refugees.

And at that time, they said, I should go on social media. So I said, okay, and they helped me out with it. And I didn't know how to upload it, download it, download it, and load it out load. And so we grew it and we did it all toward, you know, informing people about the refugee crisis and continue to do that. And so Gideon was walking down the road with us. My son, my young son Gideon, he was quarantining, but we could take walks on the road.

And so, you know, when he came back to be with us and, and we, it was our anniversary of the day before. So it had to be April 17th. And we're walking down the road and we stop in front of the yellow for city. And, and he takes out his cell phone. What she often does, because he likes to record family moments. And he says, so, you know, what's going on? And somehow we say, it was our anniversary today. And then Catherine goes and we had a fight. We had a big fight. And then we talk about the fight now we love each other and everything.

And he finishes it. He comes to us a day or so later. He says, that was really kind of sweet. And I, can I put it on your social media? I said, well, I don't know how to do it. He said, no, I can figure it out. And I said, yeah, go ahead, put it on there. And okay. And his thinking was at the time to anything we can do. Maybe to grow the numbers to bring more eyeballs to the refugee crisis. And I said, sure. And he puts it on and it kind of goes through the roof. Everybody loves this story of Catherine. I talking about having a fight on a anniversary.

And then he continues filming us. We don't even know he's filming us after time. He's got a camera on one of these. Yeah, dinner tables. And we just made it. We said, listen, nothing goes on without mom and me saying, okay. And he starts putting it out there. And it catches people are enjoying it. And it's just family at home. And then, and then down the road, George Floyd was killed.

And we felt it was inappropriate to have the amusing family videos. So we began posting with the help of our children, by Zakan Gideon organizations that needed attention and fundraising to tighten awareness of the of sister racism in our country and maybe trying to turn that around.

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