March 8, 2021

House of Cards star Robin Wright’s latest character is a broken women who abandons everything she knows, and retreats to a mountaintop, in the new film, “Land.”  

“What we’ve been seeing the last four years (under Trump), it was just encouraging more meanness in the world,” she said. “And I just wanted to make a film about human kindness.”

“And do you think in the end that’s what this is about?

“I do.”

Wright not only stars in the film, she directs it, too.

One interviewer asked:  “You certainly did not pick any easy film logistically to be your directorial debut, did you?”

“Did not! Nope, didn’t think about that at the time.”

Nearly alone, at 8,000 feet up in the remote Canadian wilderness, actress Robin Wright is taking on the great outdoors, instead of the wilds of Washington. “Maybe because six years on a stage shooting ‘House of Cards,’ we weren’t outside very much,” she said.

Parts of this high terrain in Alberta can deliver four seasons, sometimes in a single day. “You’ve got four thousand people asking you questions even ten minutes – ‘Where do you want that, what are we doing with this, da da da, what lens do we want’ – and then you’ve got to jump in front of the camera and have a breakdown scene. And I would just have one take in me, and then I would dry up, and I’d be so mad at myself.”

She’s used to playing both sides of the camera. She directed several episodes of Netflix’s “House of Cards,” including the season finale. And yet, she remains one of a small group of women in Hollywood being handed the reins to direct.

Wright said, “Should I? Can I? Yes, you can. You can do it. You just have to be committed to your strength and your confidence that you can do it.”

Her roles are often strong women, intimidating even. Wright has a softer side, of course. Her Instagram shows that. Glamor shots, yes, but if you ask women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, those pajamas Wright is wearing are a lifesaver.

Her latest role is a different kind of strong. Her skills as a director, different, too. But she’s hardly done with either.