House of Cards star Michael Kelly talks about Spacey departure

House of Cards star Michael Kelly talks about the show and Kevin Spacey for the first time since Spacey’s departure six months ago.

Kelly, who plays chief of staff Doug Stamper on the series, opened up to Variety about his reaction to the sexual harassment allegations against Spacey and how the show has found new life following Netflix’s announcement that House of Cards will move on without him.

The show intends to finish with Robin Wright as the lead since the end of last season conveniently saw Claire Underwood installed as President.

More from Netflix

Kelly is predictably diplomatic considering the sensitive nature of the allegations, reserving judgment regarding Spacey but conscious of the seriousness of the allegations made against him. He talks mostly about his own feelings, of the strangeness of doing the show without him.

“I don’t even know how to put it into words because you know one thing for so long and then all of a sudden it’s a completely different world you’re living in,” said Kelly. “There’s obviously a million emotions that I went through, that I processed during this whole thing. I don’t want to talk too much about it because it was heartbreaking in so many ways.”

But Kelly has complete confidence in Wright to carry the series to its finale, saying, “Robin is so frigging talented…to have all those years to have learned from Kevin, and now all this time to learn from Robin, it’s just like as an actor, you can’t ask for anything more than that.”

While Kelly isn’t done with his acting career just yet, he is considering maybe one day getting into politics himself. He spends time lobbying for seniors in Washington and has some ideas about how to go about fixing the partisanship issue that stalls progress.

He’s particularly hopeful regarding the youth of the country, saying he thinks the young people are going to save us.

Next: 6 Amazon original series you need to binge right now

After having seen so many of them stand up for what they believe by organizing and attending marches- including the Parkland students – he thinks they’ll be the ones to take us in the right direction in the end.

Home/Netflix