House of Cards creator opens up about Frank Underwood’s sexuality
House of Cards showrunner Beau Willimon has spoken about the sexuality of Kevin Spacey’s character Frank Underwood.
The Netflix drama has long teased the sexuality of the fictional President – showing hints of same-sex relationships despite his marriage to Claire Underwood (Robin Wright).
In the second season, the show hinted at a relationship with former Army friend Tim Corbet, while the Underwoods engaged in a bisexual threesome with bodyguard Edward Meechum.
The latest season of the show, which aired on Netflix last month, showed the President sharing sexual tension with his biographer Tom Yates.
When challenged on the portrayal, Beau Willimon told Huffington Post: “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.
“I think he’s incredibly guarded with who he lets get close to him, whether that’s platonic or whether that’s sexual.
“And when he does, it’s not necessarily a gender or preference, it really has to do with trust.
“There’s very few people in this world that we’ve created that he can trust… We try to approach Frank the way he approaches himself, which is not to sort of pin him down.”
Of the scene with Tom Yates, he added: “It’s an emotional connection. Not necessarily a sexual one, but it could be. It depends on how you look at that moment and I think there’s a lot of grey area there.
“At least for that moment, he can trust Thomas Yates, whether it evaporates quickly or not.”
