Diane Lane is ready to topple Robin Wright’s house of cards in the series’ final season,
Diane Lane joins cast as a worthy adversary to President Underwood
“Stunned. I was stunned. I think everybody was stunned.”
Diane Lane is discussing the moment she first heard that Kevin Spacey, the star of Netflix’s House of Cards, wouldn’t be returning to set.
“When you’re doing a show that’s this important, well any show really that has been going on this long, you become like a family,” says Lane in an interview with the Star. “But Netflix did an amazing thing by standing by the crew and their families and continuing along. I’m sure it was a difficult decision.”
The sixth and final season of the groundbreaking Netflix show was in jeopardy after Spacey faced multiple accusations of sexual misconduct last year. Production was halted on the show before the decision was made to go ahead with a final season.
In September, Los Angeles prosecutors said they would not file criminal charges against Spacey on one of the allegations because it was outside the statute of limitations.
Lane and co-star Greg Kinnear, who play brother and sister political operators in a family of billionaires, were already contracted for the final season when Spacey was fired.
“I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on at the time. I was in no way close to the pulse. I was sort of waiting patiently for my number like I was in the deli, for them to get back to me,” says the 53-year-old New York City native. “I had a lot of catching up to do because I hadn’t watched the show. I started binging it before I got on set in October (2017). And then it went on hiatus because of what happened.
“They already owned a chunk of my time in my life and it was up to them to see what they wanted to do with it. And I’m so glad they went ahead.”
The show has charted the rise and fall of the Underwood spouses for five seasons since it debuted in February 2013. The sixth season, now streaming on Netflix, has been culled from a planned 12 episodes to eight. And now it’s all about the mercurial, ice-in-the-veins new president, Claire Underwood, played by Robin Wright.
But every good heroine needs a villain. And if anyone can stand toe to toe with President Underwood, it’s Superman’s mom. Or in this case, billionaire funder Annette Shepherd as played by Lane.
“It was fun to be asked. I think it’s delicious and very rewarding for fans of Claire Underwood and Robin Wright to see a kind of nemesis that’s on par and knows her from her deep history,” says Lane. “A hero is tested by the anti-hero. Although I’m not even sure if there are heroes here.”
House of Cards has a deep historical significance for the industry: it was the first series from a streaming company to be nominated in the prestigious Best Drama category at the Emmy Awards. It showed that online broadcasters had arrived. It also paved the way for other streamers such as Hulu, with The Handmaid’s Tale, to eventually own that category.
“What was interesting was that I had to say yes or no to the offer when they asked me,” says Lane. “But I do remember being at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner and seeing the huge ripple effect that it had in the industry. The room was just all tuned in to the stars when they walked in. The president would make jokes about the show. They were so starstruck it was telling how important this show was.”
In its premiere, the show followed South Carolina Democrat Frank Underwood’s Machiavellian plan to grasp power as he was passed over for Secretary of State. But in its later seasons, House of Cards struggled to match the dramat- ic brilliance of its earlier ones. Particularly in the Trump era, when writers have failed to overcome the verity of a realitystar president and administration whose lines are better than anything uttered by both fictional President Underwoods.
(It’s hard for dialogue to compete with a real-life Trump official calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “that little punk kid running Canada.”) “People are overwhelmed with the reality today,” says Lane. “Everyone really had their work cut out for them because it’s pretty surrealistic what’s happening in Washington.”
Lane, who exudes the kind of movie star glamour that seems a throwback to old Hollywood, was born in New York City to a father who was a drama coach and a mother who was a nightclub singer. She started acting onstage at the age of 6.
She made her Broadway de- but opposite Meryl Streep at the age of 12 and was featured on the cover of Time Magazine. Laurence Olivier called her “the new Grace Kelly.” Francis Ford Coppola cast her in The Outsiders and Rumble Fish.
In 2002, her role as a conflicted housewife engaging in an affair in Unfaithful earned her an Academy Award nomination.
But apart from a 1989 role in the miniseries Lonesome Dove, Lane hasn’t done much TV. Viewers are seeing a lot more of Lane on the smaller screen this fall with roles in another prestige drama, Matthew Weiner’s The Romanoffs on Amazon.
InHouse of Cards, she elevates the final shows, proving herself a worthy adversary to Claire.
There was no doubt, of course, that Wright could hold the show on her own. Spacey’s grandiose scenery chomping — he might as well have been using a lawn mower — was the foil to her character’s severe pragmatism and unyielding check on emotion. But the foundation of the show was built on that peculiar chemistry between the two.
Pitting the star power of the eminently likable Lane and Kinnear ( Little Miss Sunshine) against Wright makes things decidedly murky. You’re not sure who exactly to root for in this final season.
The two play the kind of American industrialists, like the Koch family, behind many of the machinations in Washington. But here again, reality has surpassed the fictional narrative.
Trump has filled his cabinet with GOP billionaire donors, such as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos or Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who are al- ready pulling the strings.
The Shepherds, meanwhile, are looking from the outside in, their connection to power based on their tenuous relationship to the presidency.
“I think the characters are holding up a mirror to what’s happening out there with money and politics,” says Lane. “This show was a prototype, it was a guidepost for people to learn how the American political system works. And this, in some ways, is how it works, for better or worse.”
Politics has always intrigued Lane. It was not that long ago she was contracted to play the role of Hillary Clinton in an aborted NBC miniseries. Politicians, she says, “are the bravest of all actors. You must convince people of your passion.”
She takes a pause. “Can we just take a minute to be amazed that we’re discussing a political show about the president on a day and a month like this?”
She is referring to pipe bomb assassination attempts made against Democrats and critics of Donald Trump, including former president Barack Obama. The bomb threats would be followed by the deadliest antiSemitic attack on American soil in history, resulting in 11 deaths. The timing of the release of House of Cards, only days before the Nov. 6 midterm elections, could not be more politically charged.
“We have been put through the wringer emotionally because of what’s happening out there,” Lane says.
“The writers had a really high bar to jump over when you think about it. And I think, despite what they were up against, they did it.”