AN ATTORNEY GENERAL. AN ACTRESS. A SENATOR. A NEWS ANCHOR. TWO RADIO HOSTS. A CHAIRWOMAN. TWO CEOS. AN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR. A MAGAZINE PUBLISHER. A STUDIO EXECUTIVE.
Over the past year, BRAVE WOMEN HAVE SPOKEN OUT, toppling powerful abusers and harassers. In doing so, they’ve PAVED THE WAY for a deserving wave of female management. IT COULDN’T HAVE ARRIVED SOON ENOUGH. In an ELLE exclusive, we gathered 12 high-profile leaders who’ve come out of the #MeToo reckoning. HERE, THEY TELL THEIR STORIES.
ROBIN WRIGHT
LEAD ACTRESS, HOUSE OF CARDS
The season five finale of Netflix’s Beltway drama, House of Cards, closed with a shot of Robin Wright as First Lady Claire Underwood looking straight into the camera and delivering, with chilling authority, two words: “My turn.” It could serve as the campaign slogan of any woman in these pages.
It also wouldn’t have been a terrible line with which to wrap a show. In October 2017, actor Anthony Rapp had accused Wright’s costar and counterpart, Kevin Spacey, of sexual misconduct, which preceded dozens of similar reports against Spacey. Netflix quickly severed ties with the actor. The sixth season was already going to be the show’s last; with Spacey out, perhaps it was best to pull the plug. Wright pushed to continue. “We all felt, collectively, like, Let’s not drop this ball,” she says.
“Let’s forge ahead and persevere. Complete the mission.” So, on November 2, icy, indomitable Claire hit screens as leader of the free world, in a version of Washington even more cynically convoluted than our current reality. The tension was clear from the get-go:
This story is from the December 2018 edition of ELLE.
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