There’s plenty of buzz around House of Cards. Just last week the US subscribership of its production company and "network" Netflix, surpassed HBO’s. A few days later Kevin Spacey’s snarky spoof House of Nerds played to applause at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. With season 2 already in the works, it’s a show that’s consistently assuring its success.

But at the end of the day, it’s about the brains behind the breakthrough series. I had the chance to chat with show runner Beau Willimon last week on the day of the House of Cards TV panel night at the Academy. You’d never guess the brilliant writer, who’s had works commissioned at the National Theatre, penned blockbusters like The Ides of March and is now working with David Fincher, is still in his 30s.

Cigarette and Diet Coke in hand out on the patio of The Four Seasons Hotel in LA, he started discussing the Netflix new model of television. I was worried my recorder wouldn’t pick up his voice outside, but he assured me he does a billion voice memos a month creating soundscapes. My thoughts? Damn, how many more skills can this guy have? I liked him already.

ATW: With House of Cards, you’re really set on breaking free of the typical TV format.

W: A lot of people for years have been lamenting our attention deficit disorder. But, and I’m no sociologist, that’s a function of having a lot more choices, right? If box sets, DVR and releasing everything at once have proven anything, it’s that people can sit in one place and watch 7 hours of something. It’s just about if you have a good story that people are engaged with, then their attention span is limitless. The only reason we have half hour and one hour lengths conventionally is going back to the days of slotting in shows for advertising purposes. Advertising for places like HBO, Showtime, Netflix, you name it, is not even a part of the equation.

ATW: Just this week Netflix Subscribers surpassed HBO!

W: Yes. So I have read! Who knows exactly what that proves other than Netflix is offering something a lot of people want: what you want to watch, when you want to watch it and in what quantities. That trend towards viewer empowerment is one thing. Then in terms of how that affects form, conceivably you could have a season of a show where you don’t have regularized episodes. One could be 14 minutes, one 97, I’d love to some day play with the idea of 6 or 8 hours that’s just a continuous stream. You decide where you want to pause if you want to pause at all. It opens up possibilities. Typically, TV has been written to match the form, but more and more the form to match the narrative.

ATW: When you’re pioneering new territory with format, people automatically dish out criticism. Specifically with what Netflix is doing, people say it’s giving into this “binge” American culture.

W: Releasing all episodes at once doesn’t necessitate binging, it allows for that as an option. Not everyone is. People watching entire seasons of a show is not new to House of Cards. It started with box sets really. I actually was a couple years beyond on The Sopranos.

ATW: I’m watching it now. Shhh! Don’t say anything!

W: Yea! Everyone was like Sopranos, Sopranos! I watched several seasons over the course of a week. That was a function of On Demand and DVD at the time. Netflix was responding to a trend that was well on its way. We just happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right content and the right names. And willing to say yes!

ATW: Coming from a playwriting background where it’s all about the playwright’s text, working with a TV script there are so many more hands the script has to filter through. Do you find that frustrating or liberating?

W: Apples and oranges and in some ways totally similar. You start with the text, as you do in film and television, but once you get in the rehearsal process, you find what works and what doesn’t. Actors, the director, other people have input and you adapt. You have this ongoing dialogue with the actors, and you can respond to what you’re seeing in front of the camera in the first few episodes and say I want to adapt the story because this actor’s phenomenal or It’s clear that this story line should carry more weight than it currently does.

ATW: I wasn’t sure if you wrote the whole series before shooting?

W: Season 1 we had 13 scripts before we shot a single frame. That was mostly due to the fact that Spacey was doing a world tour of Richard III so we had time. I said let’s get to work, and I hired some writers.

ATW: I love that play.

W: Did you see him perform it?

ATW: No! I was living in London in 2010 when it was rumored he’d be touring with it, but I missed it!

W: I saw the closing show at the Old Vic and also at BAM, but he did it all over the world. It was incredible and certainly informed what we were doing a lot, Richard III obviously has a lot to teach you about power and ambition and desire. In any case, we used that time to write scripts. We ended up making huge changes once we got into production. For instance Corey Stoll, his character Peter Russo, was never intended to run for governor.

ATW: No way!

W: We saw what Kevin what Corey were doing together on screen, and I thought I want to see this guy on the screen more. It became clear to me that this other character running for governor; actually that story belonged to Peter Russo. It took massive re-writes but it was worth it. We were really able to respond with what we were seeing. As a result Rachel Brosnahan, who played the call girl in the first episodes, was never supposed to go beyond that. When I started re-figuring Russo’s story, I thought here’s a great opportunity to bring her back, and she ended up being phenonomenal. That odd relationship between her and Stamper was a real discovery, a happy accident as it were.

ATW: That contrast of Russo next to Underwood, for me as an audience member, was totally necessary in order to grasp the pressure of the political world. You’ve got someone with this intense anxiety like Russo next to Frank, who’s seemingly unbreakable.

W: It became one of the central, strongest story lines in Season 1. But that was responding to what we were seeing.

ATW: I’m curious about Kate Mara’s character. How much did you form these characters before the actors were brought on board?

W: I worked on the first episode for almost a year before we cast anyone. Kevin and Robin came on board about a year in; then we teamed up with Netflix. You write what you see in your head and then you cast someone and then very quickly their voice starts to infuse itself into your psyche. As soon as Kate started performing the role on camera, I made adjustments, so we sort of met each other half way.

ATW: She definitely becomes more hotheaded, more of a spitfire as the season goes on.

W: That’s partially responding to Kate, but also that the character has a journey, she changes over time.

ATW: What’s the process like when you start to make these big changes in the script, like with Russo? Which people do you have to pass it by?

W: For a big decision like that, it’ll be a conversation between me and my fellow EPs. I called up Fincher, Eric Roth and Josh Donen and ran it past them; here’s my initial stab at what this would look like. We collectively decide it’s a good thing to do. Mostly, it’s a conversation and then it comes down to nitty-gritty of rolling up our sleeves and doing the work, seeing what it looks like on the page.

ATW: TV liberates you in that way. Speaking with some film writers, often they’re not even allowed on set.

W: TV is a different culture, granted none of us had done TV before. I can’t even say we were doing a TV show; we just set out to tell a good story and did the best we could. It was a continual process. I was on the ground every day during Season 1 from first rehearsal to final shot and sometimes changing stuff as we were shooting in between takes.

ATW: You’ve been involved in multiple political campaigns but are writing for viewers that may not be as plugged into that world. How do you balance that political language in the show and still make it accessible to Netflix audiences?

W: It is a fine line in terms of political jargon; you want that to feel authentic, so you don’t want to dumb it down. At the same time, you don’t want it to overwhelm the story. Ultimately, if you go back to who are my characters, what do they need and how are they going to go about it, it becomes clear what’s important in a scene. You’ll find not a ton of political jargon in the show, but when it’s there, we want it to really count. It’s really not a show about politics at all. It’s power and ambition. In a lot of ways, it’s a show about marriage. When I spoke to Fincher three and a half years ago, I said I want Francis’ wife to be his equal.

ATW: I love the scene when she’s talking to Steve in the hospital. The way she describes her relationship with Frank is so clear to me; they’re partners in crime.

W: They’re not seeking happiness. Happiness to them is complacency. They don’t know what happiness is, but that’s not a bad thing to them. They’re cut from the same cloth and there’s a deep mutual trust, respect, and admiration. They need each other. They’re marriage is unorthodox by most people’s standards. We all think we know what the rules are, but every marriage determines their own. I’m interested in marriage that may be unorthodox but is more deeply successful than most marriages out there.

ATW: You’re work explores this a lot. The Parisian Woman, your play at the South Coast Rep, and then you’re adapting Ibsen’s The Master Builder. All about women gaining power.

W: Not adapting, just producing! It’s one of the great explorations of power. Ibsen is a titan. Ambition, desire and power are major themes in that play. I think it’s a greater play perhaps than Hedda Gabler or A Doll’s House. It’s brutal with its honesty.

ATW: On the subject of playwriting, you’ve been very successful, so why make the transition into film?

W: It’s not a transition; I continue to do theater. There’s nothing that says you can only do one thing at a time. I have a play up right now and a television show. I’m producing two documentaries. It’s about where the best stories are.

ATW: And what the best medium is for them.

W: Look television and film, you can pay the rent with them. It allows you to have more freedom in the theater. People only making their living in the theatre are compelled to write plays that are more producible. I’m right now; knock on wood, in a position where I can focus on the passion for writing plays and not on the practical side of it.

ATW: You put up Balm and Gilead for one night in a warehouse!

W: We did it all in 100 hours in a 1500 foot warehouse! I got toilets installed, we had an eight-piece band, we built sets I had chefs that would cook meals; cots so people could sleep!

ATW: That’s a theatre nerds’ dream!

W: It was an extraordinary experience. Maybe one of the most satisfying theatrical experiences I’ve ever had.

ATW: Because you’re doing TV and film you have that opportunity.

W: I produced it and a lot of people donated their time and services, but there were costs and they weren’t insignificant. Doing work in Hollywood allowed me to take care of those costs so that a company of seventy people could have an experience that I think all of us will remember until we die.

ATW: Jealous. So you’ve clearly got a bunch of projects going on. What can we expect from House of Cards? What are you excited about in regards to character development?

W: Nice try. That was like a sneaky way [laughs] What are you excited about? I’m not saying a word! You wouldn’t want me to ruin the surprise! But I’m very excited, and we’re going into production soon. Our philosophy is to improve on season 1. It’s our priority to experiment and sometimes we fall flat on our faces; season one has – it has mistakes. But those mistakes are a sign of experimentation and to create a large and complicated world.

ATW: I love when we see Frank vulnerable. When he gets emotional on the TV show and during his college speech. I think there will be more of that…

W: You’ll see… there will or there won’t be! [laughs] That was even sneakier!