House of Cards star Robin Wright said in a new interview that the show was very close to getting canceled without a final season after news broke of Kevin Spacey’s sexual misconduct scandal.
Now at the helm of the series, Wright said the series was “very, very close” to cancellation after Spacey was fired following multiple allegations of sexual harassment and assault.
Videos by PopCulture.com
“Because of the climate at that time. The air was thick, you know,” Wright told Net-A-Porter. “Harvey Weinstein… People were [saying], ‘We have to shut everything down or otherwise it will look like we are glorifying and honoring this thing that’s dirty.”
She felt differently, however, saying, “our show’s not dirty.” Wright advocated for a final season to wrap up the storylines.
“I believed we should finish. I believed we should honor our commitment. To people that loved the show, also. Why quit?”
Wright noted that had production shut down for good, not ending the series, the amount of people out of work would have been much more than initially reported, Deadline writes.
“They printed that it was ‘only’ 600 people out of work, but if you include security, cops, shooting on location in Baltimore, everything, 2,500 people would have been out of a job,” she told the outlet. “And that’s not fair — to take that security away from those people… They didn’t do anything.”
Netflix announced their decision to cut ties with Spacey came after numerous accusations of misconduct against the actor surfaced including several from people who worked on House of Cards.
Despite the actor denying the allegations, Netflix announced they would not “be involved with any further production of House of Cards that includes Kevin Spacey.” The streaming giant also announced they had scrapped the film Gore, which starred Spacey and was already in post-production.
At the time, Wright spoke out about the upcoming season and the scandal, saying she was never close to the actor.
“I think we were all surprised, of course, and ultimately saddened. We forged ahead, and we were so thankful that we were able to complete the series as planned,” Wright said during an interview with Today. “We were co-workers, really. We never socialized outside of work.”
When asked if Spacey deserved a second chance to revitalize his career, Wright said: “I believe every human being has the ability to reform… In that sense, second chances, or whatever you are going to call it – absolutely, I believe in that. It’s called growth.”
House of Cards‘ sixth and final season will be made available to stream Friday, November 2 on Netflix.
