Just a warning that the following interview by The Hollywood Reporter contains spoilers from the fourth season of House of Cards

Will is about making videos, taking selfies, and using social media to appeal to his voters. How do you think his character reflects the current presidential candidates in the real life election where they’re active on Twitter and Snapchat?

This election is just crazy, more unpredictable than anyone could have imagined. What we’re portraying in this show with social media playing a bigger part to appeal to a younger demographic in the way he’s promoting himself and what they both have in common is what previously kind of was perceived as something that was beneath a presidential candidacy. I think this presidential campaign we’re seeing especially on the Republican side, there’s very few things left that we ever thought we were going to see in a presidential election. After we seen a presidential candidate implying how big his dick is, I think there’s not much left for shock value.

Do you think there are parallels with your character and any of the candidates? Or any other characters?

I think there are more parallels with Donald Trump and [former Prime Minister of Italy] Silvio Berlusconi than anyone else. He’s just his own entity because he’s just a reality star that’s now a presidential candidate. In the ways that Will is using social media, I mean all the candidates use Twitter, but Trump uses it more.

Your addition to the show was pretty tight-lipped. What were the logistics to you joining the series?

It’s like anything when you go into a project, you have to follow the lead of the production and the publicity side of that and how they want to promote it. As many things as I’ve done before, you go into it and you keep it quiet and under wraps and sort of leak the information when everybody feels it’s the right timing. It was an amazing experience with Kevin, and Robin [Wright] and particularly Beau Willimon who I just think is a brilliant, brilliant man. I just had a lot of fun working with the material and also coming to a set and a creative space where there were some pages that we got, but then it was all a creative process that I was invited to participate in and help create the character and give input.

How did Beau bring you on to do the show?

He called my people up and asked if I wanted to be a part of it. Then we started talking about it and I made the decision to join.

What drew you to the role and to join the series?

I loved the show. I think it’s one of the best shows on television, if not the best, and I was a real fan of it, but it was definitely the character and the role. You know there are a lot of roles on phenomenal TV shows that I wouldn’t want to do anyway, but this was something that I thought was special and it was an opportunity to play with Kevin. It was a very fun character.

What scenes were your favorite to film?

I really enjoyed the scenes I had with Kevin. We had, during the Democratic Convention and the scenes we had in this little room — that was a lot of fun. Even though they would get spaced out over a whole episode it came down to a 15-page scene that we shot continuously. It was like we were doing a little mini-TV play, just me and him in that room. He’s such an amazing actor and this character is something he completely embodies. It was like a sparring match and I think we both really enjoyed ourselves in that.

Where do you hope Will goes in season five?

We’ll just have to find out. I mean I have a contract for a few episodes, but we’ll see what happens.

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