Stranger than fiction
Every politician needs a henchperson. In Netflix’s House of Cards, President Francis Underwood, who is running for re-election in the now-streaming Season 4, has Douglas Stamper. So it’s only fitting that the equally Machiavellian first lady has her own: Leann Harvey, a take-noprisoners campaign strategist played by Neve Campbell.
Campbell, of Scream and Party of Five fame, kept a low profile after moving to London in the late 2000s. Upon returning to the United States, she had a son, Caspian, now 3, with her partner, actor J. J. Feild.
“I knew that getting back into TV would be a good thing for me,” she said, but “I didn’t want to do 17 hours a day, 10 months a year, and not be present for Caspian.” The ideal, she decided, would be as part of an ensemble, where she wasn’t shooting every scene. Q: What’s it like being in a political drama when reality may be stranger than fiction? A: I think if we were to put what’s going on in the political landscape right now into a series, you might say it’s over the top. Q: Did you draw on any reallife political personality for Leann? A: No, honestly, it’s really come from witnessing certain females in my industry, direc- tors or agents who have a certain energy to them because they’ve had to really fight to be respected equally to their male counterparts. Q: Who’s your favourite political partnership? A: Well, Hillary and Bill have been fascinating to watch, the way that they’ve had to navigate their drama was pretty intense. Harvey Weinstein had a gathering at his place on Martha’s Vineyard for Bill Clinton, and I spent a very surreal evening with the Clintons (when he was in office). I remember standing on the water and looking out, and Bill Clinton was somewhere playing the saxophone. I was like: “What are those things out there? There are, like, heads bobbing.” I guess the Secret Service has to be within a mile radius of the president, so there were SEALs out on the water. Q: You’ve said that, as a Canadian, you’re comfortable being called a socialist. A: Yeah, I guess you would call me a democratic socialist. Q: And your heart is with Sen. Bernie Sanders, but your head is with Hillary Clinton. A: That’s not to say that I don’t have heart with Hillary as well. It’s just that if it were an ideal world, I’d love to go with Bernie. I’m just not sure that America is ready for him yet. I think America is fearful and can’t quite understand how you could have free education or free medical. I’ve grown up in that, so I see very clearly why that should be the case. With Hillary, I feel that because she’s been in the political arena for as long as she has, she might have enough relationships to be able to get some things done.