It's not uncommon for a series in its fifth season to struggle for a relevant handhold, suffering from a stalling story after nearly a half-decade on air. But House of Cards, which premieres its fifth season this week, has a very different problem: how exactly does a show so deeply contingent on dark and frankly inconceivably political machinations compete with the pure mania that's happening in our very real political climate?

The answer to whether or not the daring drama will manage to out-crazy the current administration still remains a minor mystery, but after creator Beau Willimon's departure at the end of the last season, the series is finding new life in the hands of long-time writers Frank Pugliese and Melissa James Gibson, who certainly have their work cut out for them. This month, we had a chance to sit down with series stars Mike Kelly (who appears as the always morally corrupt Stamper) and magnetic Season 4 addition Neve Campbell (who made her series debut last season as Claire Underwood's campaign manager LeAnn) to discuss what's in store for Season 5, the effect that Trump's campaign and ultimate victory has had on the series, the departure of Willimon and Stamper and LeAnn's curious chemistry.

Well this just became a semi-depressing show to talk about! I would love to hear about how this shocker of an election helped inform the series, and what that was like for you all on set.

NEVE CAMPBELL: It was certainly interesting to be shooting a season based around an insane election whilst surrounded by an insane election process. [Laughs] Overwhelming, in a lot of ways. We watched CNN in the hair and makeup trailer pretty much all day, every day. And then the show’s politics as well, it was pretty all encompassing. This year has been really challenging for us. The day after the election was really tough on our set, very depressing. I think for most people in the creative world, most creative people, tend to be leftist. So it was interesting shooting a show that has dirty politics and then witnessing dirty politics.

MIKE KELLY: But to see it since we wrapped right, like it keeps getting worse and worse. Like every day I’m just like, “Oh my god, are you doing that just to be a dick? Are you doing this just to be spiteful?” It’s almost become Trump’s whole mission is to destroy Obama’s legacy. It’s not like he’s doing anything proactive or to help the country. He’s just destroying everything that he did.

There are touches in Season 5 that definitely echo the culture's current issues with our President, the "Never Underwood" signs in the trailer come to mind. Did the writers make any calibrations after the events of the election, or did you as performers? 

CAMPBELL: They didn’t adjust the plot line in accordance with what was happening in the real world. It just so happened that what we were doing mirrored what was happening in the real world. Which seems to happen every season on this show, weirdly. It wouldn’t make sense for them to just be looking at the news and trying to follow it, they have a very clear vision of where the show is going from the beginning of the season to the end of the season, and they need to. I think that’s their priority, is quality.

KELLY: And you look at what you were saying, the hacking that we did in Season 4 – hacking and tampering with the election became a reality.

CAMPBELL: But Beau Willimon definitely had his ear to the ground. He was having a lot of conversations with Washington while he was writing, so while it wasn’t definitive things, he was aware of what the happenings were in the White House and the potential of things. The things that the government was afraid of, so he had had those conversations.

I know this was the show's first season without Beau. What was that transition like? 

KELLY: It was tough, certainly on a personal level. I think Beau's a genius and he's become a close friend to almost everyone there, to both of us. So, you lost that. That was a big thing to lose. And Beau's work ethic, I don't know anyone else, personally, who works as hard as he does, it's insane. He doesn't sleep much, at the beginning of the season, he looks great, at the end of the season he looks like hell. Because he puts himself through hell, he sleeps five hours a night, and just works, writes, works, writes, works, writes. And so, Netflix and MRC did the right thing by staying within and to promote two of the most senior writers to take over his job.

CAMPBELL: They had an understanding of the voice and where the show was going.

KELLY: But still, it's tough, you lose a friend. And an unwavering voice. If Beau had an idea, he wrote it, and that was the show. And it's not so much that way working with Frank, not to say one's better than the other. It was just different this year. But I love Frank and Melissa.

CAMPBELL: They're very talented people and they had big shoes to fill, and I think they did a fantastic job.

Stamper, for me, is this sort of strange cautionary tale, of what the hunger for power and control can do to an individual. Is LeAnn on a similarly dark path? I feel as though we're still figuring her out.

CAMPBELL: In one of her first scenes, she says to Claire, "I don't want to get between the President and the first lady. I've been in Washington already and I don't need that." And Claire pushes it anyway, and she takes it. And I think when she gets to D.C., she certainly has a taste for that kind of power and that drives her in a lot of ways this season, in a way that it wasn't so obvious last season.

Stamper and LeAnn have such a fascinating relationship because they are by all accounts rivals and yet they have this fantastic chemistry. How do you see their relationship?

CAMPBELL: There's an amount of competition between the two, obviously, because they're vying for the same position in certain ways. They're both career-minded people and very determined to keep their positions and move forward and have some kind of power. There will always be a power struggle between the two, and there's also that chemistry.

KELLY: In fighting for that power that both of them so desperately want, they see in each other an equal adversary. And so with that comes respect and admiration. Whether or not they show it, they both, I think, become fond of one another, so to speak. Not fond in a loving way, but a mutual respect for how great they both are, what they do.

I find them an interesting pair, especially against the backdrop of Frank and Claire, they seem in a way, like what the Underwoods might have been a decade or two ago. 

KELLY: I hadn't thought about that before, actually. But I can see it. You'll be in for some big surprises between the two of them, I can certainly tell you that.

House of Cards Season 5 will premiere on Netflix May 30th.