10 TV Performances Way Better Than Anyone Expected

5. Robin Wright - House Of Cards

Following a breakthrough and early rise to stardom in the 1980s, Robin Wright's career was on a downward curve by the mid-late 2000s. There was some critical acclaim for Nine Lives and Empire Falls, although neither were widely seen, and she did land supporting parts in big 2011 films Moneyball and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but she wasn't much on the radar for leading, major roles, until Netflix came calling.

Together with Kevin Spacey, Wright was tasked with leading their first big splash in the original series market, which was an update of a British TV show from the 1990s. No one really knew exactly how much to expect from Netflix, from House of Cards, and certainly not from Wright, but any notions of what this might be were soon surpassed.

Spacey was predictably great as the scheming Frank Underwood but, the longer the show went on, the more it was Wright's Claire who started to steal the show. Whereas Frank was deplorable from the get-go and always schemed for one reason only, Claire was much more multifaceted, which ended up giving Wright a lot more to do.

Yes, she was the Lady Macbeth type, scheming and conniving every bit as much as her husband, whether that was with or against him (and often both). But she was also shown to really care about people and political matters. There's a vulnerability there that didn't exist within Frank, and we get to watch, over six seasons, how that is gradually shut off and her morality is eroded away. It was fascinating even when House of Cards had mostly stopped being so, and that was all down to Wright's towering performance.