Rachel Brosnahan, a newcomer to the “House of Cards” cast, has had her role extended.
Brosnahan, 23, is part of the second season after at first expecting to only be around for a few episodes.
She was only supposed to have five lines in a two-episode arc as Rachel Posner, a call girl. But showrunner Beau Willimon had a different idea.
Willimon was going to have Rep. Peter Russo run for governor of Pennsylvania, and wanted Posner, who had been a prostitute for Russo, to play the crucial role in Russo’s downfall.
“She had done such a fine job those first two episodes that I started exploring what it would mean to bring her character back and fully three dimensionalize her,” Willimon told the Chicago Tribune. “Rachel was so fantastic when we brought her back that I just wanted to write for her more and more.”
Brosnahan appreciated it.
“I had no idea where the story was going, and so every episode that came up, something new and exciting was happening,” she said. “It was just food. I was hungry for it.”
“They took a really big chance on me, frankly, at that point,” she told the NY Daily News. “I had very few credits and they had no reason to believe that I could do anything. They took a massive chance and created, I think, one of the more interesting characters on that show.”
The young actress is also part of the cast of “The Blacklist” as Jolene/Lucy Brooks, and has also been cast in WGN America’s second original series, “Manhattan.”
“This is the first time in my life and career that I’ve been able to just be an actor and not a waitress or a nanny at the same time,” she said with a laugh. “It’s absolutely a dream come true to go to work and know that I have something else coming out.”
