House of Cards Adds Greg Kinnear and Diane Lane for Final Season

After a lengthy hiatus, production has finally resumed on the final season of Netflix’s House of Cards in the wake of star Kevin Spacey’s firing due to the sexual misconduct allegations against him. This season welcomes two Oscar-nominated actors to the series’ regular cast, Greg Kinnear and Diane Lane. Per THR, the two newcomers will play siblings, but that is all that is being revealed about their characters as of yet. The season will feature only eight episodes, as opposed to its usual 13, as previously revealed by Netflix.

After firing Spacey, Netflix and the series’ producers Media Rights Capital began rewriting the final season to revolve solely around Robin Wright’s Claire Underwood, the wife of Spacey’s character. Apparently, writing Spacey’s character out is not a huge stretch for the show, since the original material upon which the show is based (a U.K. series of the same name) kills off its version of his character anyway.

This is not the first time Kinnear comes to television, as he is currently on Amazon’s Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams, and recently starred in HBO’s film Confirmation playing Joe Biden and Reelz Channel’s The Kennedys playing John F. Kennedy. Kinnear earned critical praise, including an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, for his work in As Good As It Gets opposite Oscar-winning performances from Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholson. His credits also include Little Miss Sunshine, You’ve Got Mail, Invincible with Mark Wahlberg, The Last Song with Miley Cyrus and the recent Same Kind of Different As Me.

The final season of House of Cards does mark the first time that Lane heads to television in a series regular role. Her previous television credits include the HBO film Cinema Verite. She received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for the 2002 film Unfaithful, losing to Nicole Kidman’s transformative performance in The Hours. Lane has also appeared in Under the Tuscan Sun, The Perfect Storm, Secretariat and Trumbo opposite Bryan Cranston, and she played Superman’s mom in Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and most recently, Justice League. Lane will also reportedly star in Amazon’s forthcoming anthology series The Romanoffs, from the creators of Mad Men, about people who believe they are descendants of the Russian royal family.

The final season will also include returning House of Cards alums Michael Kelly, Jayne Atkinson, Constance Zimmer, Derek Cecil, Campbell Scott, Boris McGiver and Oscar-nominated actress Patricia Clarkson. It has been reported that Neve Campbell will not be returning. Netflix has yet to set a premiere date for the returning show.