Cody Fern brings Closing Night to TIFF and revisits lost House of Cards villain role

Cody Fern arrived at the Toronto International Film Festival with his first film as a director and left talking about the Netflix series that was rewritten around him.

Speaking while presenting Closing Night, his feature directorial debut, meaning his first cinema film in the director's chair, Fern revisited his lost role as the central villain of the sixth season of House of Cards. He gave the recollections to Entertainment Weekly, in an interview reported by Deadline on 18 September 2026 Deadline.

Closing Night is an Australia-Canada production organised as a World Premiere in Special Presentations, a programme strand for high-profile new films TIFF. TIFF 2026 runs 10-20 September 2026. The story follows a hardened movie star who reunites with the family she left behind decades earlier.

Fern said he had been hired as a Jared Kushner-type figure intended as the main antagonist for the season. He had been filming for a couple of months when sexual misconduct allegations against lead actor Kevin Spacey stopped production. He described the moment as "the nuclear bomb hit".

House of Cards had been renewed for season six in 2017 when actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of making a sexual advance to him at a party in 1986, when Rapp was 14. A further 15 people then made allegations, including eight people who worked on House of Cards. Netflix removed Spacey from the starring role of Frank Underwood.

Fern said he returned for the reworked season led by Robin Wright as Claire Underwood, Frank's widow. He had joined the final run in a regular role, meaning a main-cast part across the series. In a 2018 interview he said he and the cast had a "choice" about whether to stay on after the disruption ET Online.

The season six cast included Wright, Michael Kelly, Diane Lane, Fern, Boris McGiver and Constance Zimmer. Variety noted in its season six review that Wright anchors the show Variety.

Spacey was later found not liable in Rapp's case. He has denied all sexual misconduct allegations against him and has never been found guilty on any charges relating to sexual misconduct.

For viewers who only saw the version that was broadcast, this is a glimpse of a different season that was never finished as planned. He stayed. The story was completed without the villain he was hired to play.