Following the murder of Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara) on House of Cards, fellow reporter Janine Skorsky (Constance Zimmer) fled Washington D.C. in the hopes of avoiding Frank Underwood’s (Kevin Spacey) increasingly dangerous influence. The cynical and oftentimes bitter print journalist was suddenly scared into submission, and her caution has lasted for many seasons.
Come season 6, however, viewers will find a more determined and less afraid Skorsky following a new story, one that ultimately brings her back home.
Constance Zimmer on the role of journalism in House of Cards season 6
“I definitely think it is what drives her,” Zimmer tells Metro of her character’s outlook on the world. “She can’t be complacent. She can’t take things at face value. And that is definitely what keeps her going now.”
“It’s crazy how the role of a journalist has changed so much in the last five years,” she continues. She’s not wrong either, for in an age when a presidential administration regularly piles the blame for so many of the country’s problems on the “fake news media,” Zimmer believes now more than ever that Skorsky should be doing right by working journalists.
“I had to make it believable. I had to make sure that journalists weren’t mad at me, especially that my character left early on,” she says. “That was really fun, but it was also a really big challenge. I wanted to make sure everybody understood that I might be fleeing at the moment, but I wouldn’t stop fighting. It was just a matter of when I would come back and fight.”
And that is precisely what the UnREAL and BoJack Horseman actress has been doing for the past few years on House of Cards. Yes, Skorsky fled in the aftermath of Barnes’ murder, and yes, she’s spent most of the previous seasons living (and hiding) in the Ithaca, New York area. But now that Frank is dead and Claire Underwood (Robin Wright) is president, she’s coming back for one last story.
“My favorite thing, on every single red carpet I ever did, was that every single journalist would say, ‘Please just tell me that Janine is still alive!’ I would always tell them that she was still alive and that there was still hope. With hope, we can get answers. I’ve always stood by that, so I’m really excited now that she’s back doing her thing this season, with new challenges.”
Like the wealth Shepherd siblings Bill and Annette, played by Greg Kinnear and Diane Lane. As audiences will find out on Friday, the pair proves to be one of the nastier thorns in Claire’s side now that she’s in the White House. But never fear, because Skorsky is on the case. But will she meet a fate like Barnes before her, or live to tell the tale?
“The biggest challenge at first was outlasting Zoe, which was never, ever part of the original story,” says Zimmer. “So when Janine outlasted Zoe, I was like, Where does that get us?’”
The sixth and final season of House of Cards streams Friday, Nov. 2, on Netflix.
