Come March 5th, we’ll all have the opportunity to catch a major milestone in Robin Wright’s career, the PVOD release of her feature directorial debut, Land. In honor of the film’s digital release, Wright took the time to join us for an episode of Collider Ladies Night to revisit some of the key steps taken throughout her career that led to her most recent achievements, and when it comes to her flourishing career behind the lens, a significant part of that journey is her involvement in House of Cards.
By the end of the Netflix series, Wright had directed 10 episodes, served as executive producer on 34 of them, and also closed out the six-season series as the star of the show. But when looking back at the very beginning of the series' run, we can’t forget what a big risk it was. Now, Netflix is an epic empire churning out original series and movies non-stop. Back in 2013, however, House of Cards marked the very first TV series produced by Netflix in-house. At the start of the show, did Wright have any inkling regarding what the streaming platform could become? Here’s what she said:
“I really didn’t see ‘epic empire’ in its future. I knew it was going to be a definite specialized style called David Fincher. He’s one of my favorites as a director and just watching him work after seeing all of his movies for so many years and then getting to witness him on set. I learned so much from him, A, and I just trusted him. He said, ‘Trust me. This is going to be the new future. It’s called streaming. And we are basically the founders of it with Netflix. And not only is this a show where you’re not gonna know from year to year if you’re gonna get picked up again, we have the freedom to let Claire Underwood evolve. We don’t even know where she’s gonna end up yet.’ So they didn’t have this arc planned because we didn’t know if we were gonna be on for one year, two years or six. And working with him and the showrunner at the time to start to create, who do we want Claire to become? And I remember saying, ‘Well, ultimately, by the end she’s got to become the first female president. I mean, this is the platform to do it! Let’s do it!’”
In addition to building her character from season to season, Wright also got the opportunity to grow as a creator behind the scenes. Wright began House of Cards as one half of the two-hander, but then she directed her very first episode in Season 2 and became a full-fledged EP in Season 4. While that is a great personal achievement for Wright, she refused to take full credit, emphasizing the value of a team on the series and on her movie Land where she served as director and the star of the movie as well.
“When you’re acting and directing, you have to have an incredible team around you. I mean, there’s no possible way to do it without your team being your backbone. I had three female producers on [Land], as an example. They were on set every day, all day, every minute they were there watching playback so that if I couldn’t get back to watch a take that I had done, I could just lean out of the cabin and be like, ‘Was that good? Was it terrible?’ And they’d be like, ‘No, you need to tell the camera to move around closer to your face. Definitely do another take and this time run out in the rain.’ Things like that. So I had co-directors. And we had discussed the movie, the tone, who Edee was, who Edee and Miguel were to each other. We had discussed it for a year prior to starting principal photography, so everyone was on the same page of what we wanted this movie, Land, to feel like.”
At the end of Wright’s run with House of Cards, she faced quite the challenge when allegations broke out about her co-star Kevin Spacey, who was ultimately fired from the series. While trying to figure out the next steps, there was the possibility that that would just be the end of House of Cards right then and there. But Wright refused to let that happen. She stepped up to do what she could in order to support the House of Cards cast and crew, and to insure that fans of the show could get closure. During our conversation, I asked if there was any apprehension about making the decision to step in like that, or if it was something she just knew she had to do. Here’s what she said:
“Yeah, the latter. You just naturally knew that that’s what needed to be done. You know, Netflix and our other investors, they needed to let the storm settle because the climate was so hot at the time. And everyone was kind of discombobulated. ‘What is going on? What is that gonna do to shooting these shows?’ And we all just said, ‘Why don’t we just take a breather?’ We shut down the show for over a month I think, two months. And we collectively just decided, we can’t do this to the fans of the show. We need to finish out Season 6 and, equally importantly, I didn’t want all of those employees that had worked on House of Cards - that’s our family. They had families to take care of and college educations to pay for and kids to feed, like anybody losing a job. I just was like, ‘No, we can’t do that to them.’ So Netflix and MRC agreed, ‘Let’s resume. And we will go out with a bang.’”
While House of Cards clearly played a big part in paving the way to Wright directing her first feature, there are many more pivotal moments from her run in Hollywood well worth celebrating for what they were at the time and also for what they mean for Wright’s career moving forward. Keep an eye out for our full Ladies Night conversation covering Forrest Gump, Wonder Woman, and so much more dropping on Collider on Friday, March 5th, just in time for Land’s PVOD release.