Michael Kelly knows viewers are happy to see Frank Underwood and his clan back in control.
Kelly said that “House of Cards” creator and former showrunner Beau Willimon purposefully wanted Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) and Doug Stamper (Kelly) to lose some of the success and power that came to them in previous seasons.
“I remember Beau telling me for Season 3, he said, ‘I want to see what happens when these characters fail,’” Kelly said. “He’s like, ‘I can write you and Kevin [Spacey] twirling your moustaches forever and destroying everything in your path, but I think it would be — I just want to challenge myself. I want to see what happens when they fail.’”
But with Season 4, Kelly said things felt like a return to Season 1.
“I think the audience missed that a little bit, so that when they did see us twirling our moustaches again, they were pretty happy,” Kelly said.
The “House of Cards” star has been nominated for an Emmy in the Supporting Actor in a Drama Series category — but Kelly said that fact didn’t fully sink in until he explained what it meant to his daughter.
“You know how there’s a whole bunch of television shows out there, right? And then there’s thousands of actors on those shows. And they took six, and they said, ‘We think you did a really good job,’” Kelly said he told his daughter. “It was when I explained it to my seven-year-old daughter, I was like, ‘Oh my God, I got nominated for an Emmy.’”
Watch the video above.