‘House of Cards’ star Michael Kelly believes there is some uncanny prescient force at work on the production of the hit Netflix drama.
He tells HuffPostUK that, every single season since the show began five years ago, some dramatic, far-fetched element that the screenwriters come up with for that season’s narrative arc, then mysteriously gets played out in real life.
“It’s uncanny,” says Michael, whom viewers will know, love and fear in equal measure in his role of Frank Underwood’s tireless henchman Doug Stamper, once again navigating his way around Washington to fulfil his boss’s power-chasing whims in the fifth season now here.
“Even though I tell myself it’s make believe, every season we do, something happens on our show that we wrote a year before and then it comes to pass.
“This year, it was impossible to have that not happen, we were filming the election during the real election. I guess you can’t escape reality.”
Despite this, Michael tells us he’d be much happier in Underwood’s fictional world than Donald Trump’s real one.
“Our show is just make believe, it’s fun set in the political world.
“Frank Underwood can do whatever he wants and there are no consequences.
“In the real world, there are consequences… look at this recent foreign trip. He managed to alienate everyone in a single blow. It was like skittles. It was a home run.”
Does Michael believe the screenwriters should try to sway US voters at least in the direction they take the show?
“We can’t do anything on this show,” he says. “We all have to take on individually. The best thing you can do, for the youth in this country, is try to change what happening. Educate yourself, learn about the candidates and the policies. Go and read.
“It’s tough – I am one among the many at a complete loss for what’s happened in our country right now. But I’m not throwing my hands up, I want to fight the fight.”
‘House of Cards’ Season 5 is available on Netflix now.