Claire Danes feels like she has a ''limb missing'' when she's away from her son.

The 36-year-old actress usually travels with husband Hugh Dancy and their two-year-old son Cyrus, but while she was filming 'Homeland' in Germany, the actor took their little boy to France with his parents and, though Claire enjoyed having some ''freedom'', she also found the separation ''incredibly challenging.''

She said: ''It's the first time I've been away from both my boys for more than a night. It's incredibly challenging, more than I ever anticipated - and confusing.

''In some ways it's great to have so much freedom. My first day I had off, I just hit the sales.''

She added: ''But there's also this fear that I'm free-falling, that there's a limb missing. I'm constantly calming myself down, like, 'It's OK, it's OK.' ''

The last season of 'Homeland' was Claire's first without co-star Damian Lewis and she ''really, really misses'' his presence on the set of the drama series.

Asked how she felt filming without him, she said told Marie Claire magazine: ''[It's] kind of scary. I knew that taking it on was possible, but I really, really missed and continue to miss [Damian]. He's very charming and a bit of a [joker]. I don't have the same rah-rah spirit on set, which I'm always embarrassed about. He would do the tap dancing, which I found helpful and now I'm like, '...Oh.' ''

And the actress would love to work with her former co-star again on a different project.

She added: ''It would be so fun to do that in a different story and under different guises.''