Robin Wright, who is pressing ahead as the marquee player on House of Cards after Kevin Spacey’s scandal-riddled ouster last fall, is finally speaking out about her former co-star. In an exclusive interview with Today co-host Savannah Guthrie, Wright made plain that she and Spacey punched the same time clock and left it at that.
“We were co-workers really. We never socialised outside of work,” said Wright, who starred alongside Spacey for five seasons as Claire Underwood, the Lady Macbeth to his calculating political machine Frank Underwood. Wright added that the two Netflix stars had a “respectful professional relationship.”
“He was so great with me,” she said. “So that’s my personal experience. That’s the only thing I feel that I have the right to talk about.”
Last November, Netflix announced that it was severing ties with Spacey just days after the Oscar winner was accused of sexual misconduct by actor Anthony Rapp, who said Spacey had made sexual advances toward him when he was 14 and Spacey 26. Since Rapp’s accusation, Spacey has faced numerous other accusations of sexual misconduct, most recently last week.
During the interview on Today, which weathered its own storm last year after NBC fired then co-host Matt Lauer amid allegations of sexual misconduct, Wright responded to Guthrie’s questions by emphasising her distance from Spacey.
Had she reached out to Spacey?
“No,” Wright answered. “I haven’t heard from him and I don’t even know how to reach him.”
But was there anything, anything at all that pointed to the actor’s swift fall from grace?
“Kevin and I knew each other between action and cut and in between setups where we would giggle,” Wright said. “I didn’t know the man. I knew the incredible craftsman that he is.”
When asked if Netflix did the right thing by firing Spacey, Wright said she “didn’t know how to comment on that.” But the actress did add that the temperature at the time was feverish. “At that time the shock was so intense all over the nation for many reasons, many stories, many people. I think that everybody felt that it was respectful to back off,” she said.
Moving past her nonexistent personal relationship with Spacey, Wright did have something to say about the #MeToo movement that swept up her former co-star. When asked if she’d ever experienced her own #MeToo moment, Wright answered, “Of course. Who hasn’t?”
“This last year I think has shined a light in a new way to allow us to start a new conversation,” she said. “So we just need to shift the paradigm.”
The sixth and final season of House of Cards will debut on Netflix this fall.
