KEVIN SPACEY [AS FRANK UNDERWOOD]: Anyone can commit suicide or spout their mouth in front of a camera. But you want to know what takes real courage? Keeping your mouth shut no matter what you might be feeling.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: That's always been his philosophy. Frank Underwood, now president, is still the politician we love to hate.
SPACEY [AS UNDERWOOD]: Because I lack scruples and some would even say compassion.
MCFADDEN: Yes, Frank Underwood has made it to the White House. Star and producer Kevin Spacey gave me a tour of the new sets.
SPACEY: This is the White House press room.
MCFADDEN: This is great. A life-long Democrat, Spacey says he, like many Americans, is frustrated with Washington.
SPACEY: I think that what is truly unfortunate is when an entire party makes a decision that they're going to block every single thing that a president wants to accomplish. It's very – it's very hard to get anything done in those circumstances.
MCFADDEN: Even Frank Underwood would have trouble with that?
SPACEY: Oh, I'd just kill everybody, just kill them all.
[MCFADDEN LAUGHS]
MCFADDEN: The show captures the weird alchemy of the outlandish, and realistic.
BEAU WILLIMON: I think we're getting to the essence of what it means to contend with that much power in your hands.
MCFADDEN: One reason the scripts are able to skate on such a fine edge, the show's creator and executive producer, Beau Willimon.
WILLIMON: We're always pushing the boundary of plausibility, that everything that happens in the show is possible.
MCFADDEN: You actually worked in politics yourself.
WILLIMON: I did. Very low on the totem pole.
MCFADDEN: So did you come out of it a cynic about politics? Or-
WILLIMON: Absolutely not. No. Francis Underwood is an optimist. You have to be-
MCFADDEN: Hold it. You mean he's an opportunist, he's a lot of things, but an optimist?
WILLIMON: An optimist. The ways he goes about it may be distasteful to you, but what do people relish in a Frank Underwood? A guy who gets things done. I think there's a certain deliciousness to that which they see in his journey that they don't see in the real Washington right now.
MCFADDEN: A guy who gets things done by any means possible.
ROBIN WRIGHT [AS CLAIRE UNDERWOOD]: We're murderers, Francis.
MCFADDEN: Let's hope fiction doesn't inspire the real politicians. For Meet the Press, I'm Cynthia Mcfadden, Joppa, Maryland.
- See more at:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2015/02/23/kevin-spacey-slams-gop-they-block-every-single-thing-obama-wants#sthash.goQxFGcC.dpuf