“House of Cards” actor Michael Kelly is pleased with the political drama’s handling of the wide spectrum of human sexuality, he told HuffPost Live this week.
Francis Underwood, the diabolical politician at the show’s center, brings many shades of grey to the White House, including his increasingly ambiguous sexual preferences, which led to The Advocate branding Underwood “Hollywood’s first bi president.” Kelly, who plays Underwood’s chief of staff Doug Stamper, told host Alyona Minkovski that he appreciates the way scenes like this avoid making heavy-handed commentary about flexible sexual tastes.
“I think it’s great that they tackled that issue, and the way that they tackled it. They didn’t come right out and say this or that, they just showed you, hey, this is something kind of funky and cool,” Kelly said.
“House of Cards” creator Beau Willimon previously described to The Huffington Post how he responds to questions about his character’s sexuality:
People have asked me straight up, ‘Is Frank Underwood bisexual? Is he gay?’ And I don’t think Frank Underwood really puts much stock in those sort of labels. As he says in the Sentinel episode [in Season 1], ‘When I’m attracted to someone, I’m attracted to them. Period.’ He’s a man with a large appetite, he’s a man who does not allow himself to be placed in any sort of milieu or with one definition.
So is it possible that “large appetite” could turn the hetero-flexible commander-in-chief’s interests to his chief of staff? Kelly told HuffPost Live he doesn’t expect that.
“For the two of them to cross that line, it would — like any sexual relationship, whether it be homosexual or heterosexual — it’s going to complicate things, and this is a relationship that can’t get complicated,” Kelly said.
Watch the full HuffPost Live conversation with “House of Cards” star Michael Kelly here.
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