Hollywood actress who doesn't want to talk about Kevin

Push Robin Wright on a topic she's not keen to discuss and she'll push right back. Asked, for instance, about her former House of Cards co-star, she shuts the subject down with a polite but firm: "Oh, I don't want to talk about Kevin at all."

Kevin Spacey resurfaced at the Cannes Film Festival last month, nearly two years after he was found not guilty of sexually assaulting four men.

So has the actor been un-cancelled after all those #MeToo allegations against him?

Well, Francis Urquhart's catchphrase from the original British House Of Cards was "You might very well think that, I couldn't possibly comment".

And in a similar vein, Wright, who played First Lady Claire to Spacey's US President Frank Underwood in the Netflix reboot, also won't be drawn.

But unlike frosty Claire, she smiles as if to say "Nice try!" and silently draws a line under the subject.

The pay parity she fought for in 2016, four seasons in? That's another story - and one she's more than happy to talk about.

"When I said, 'I just think it's only fair because we're doing the same amount of work and my character became as popular as his', they said, 'We can't pay you the same as an actor so we're going to divvy it up to make it equal'."

Wright reveals that Netflix bosses told her they'd have to make her an executive producer and a director, then they'd give her three pay cheques to put her on the same rate as Spacey.

With a resigned shrug she elaborates: "I said, 'But why can't you pay me the same as an actor?' and they said, 'Because you didn't win an Academy Award'."

By that point she'd received a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Frank's steely right-hand woman and had been nominated for four Primetime Emmys.

But Spacey had not one but two Oscars under his belt, for The Usual Suspects and American Beauty. "And that's been the go-to line by men in this industry for years," Robin sighs. "Your hope is going to increase if you win an Academy Award.

"A nomination? Not so much. But why is that the way? What does that have to do with anything?"

When we meet, Wright is at the 64th Monte-Carlo Television Festival, where she's being honoured with the Crystal Nymph lifetime achievement award.

On the red carpet she's glammed-up to the nines in a silver dress, but for interviews she's more practically-dressed in a grey suit and trainers.

I tell her that, at 59, she doesn't seem old enough for a lifetime achievement award and she grins: "I am! I've been acting on camera since I was 16 and I'm almost 60."

She's not so fussed about awards for specific performances "because they're so subjective" but she's competitive in real life. "On a tennis court or whatever, I have to win."

Asked what she herself sees as her biggest achievement, she points to her staying power across movies and TV. This dates back to her days as a teenage model, her acting debut on a couple of episodes of daytime soap The Yellow Rose and a four-year run on Santa Barbara from 1984.

"I feel blessed to have been able to remain in this business for 40-plus years," says Robin, who has since branched out into directing and producing.

She's played it cannily too, pointing out: "In my late 20s and early 30s I could have done back-to-back pieces, but I chose to be really selective.

"I was a full-time mom and I didn't want to leave my kids during the school year - so I would only work in the summer."

At that time she'd begun dating Sean Penn and they had two children together - daughter Dylan and son Hopper - before tying the knot in 1996. They finally divorced in 2010.

"I would do one movie a year," she says of motherhood. "But being selective helps because I feel like you can oversaturate
the market with yourself when you're in too many things."

In the early days, she went from being a scared youngster in soap land - "I was a baby and didn't know what I was doing" - to the enchanting Buttercup in 1987's
The Princess Bride, which featured the credit "introducing Robin Wright" even though it wasn't her first film.

"I had done a movie prior to that that I didn't want anybody to know about," she laughs of the long-forgotten Hollywood Vice Squad. "I played a 17-year-old heroin addict runaway hooker".

The Princess Bride became a much-loved classic, as did 1994's Forrest Gump, in which she played the enduring object of Tom Hanks' affection, Jenny Curran.

Jenny wasn't always the nicest of girls. "But that's how she was written," Robin reflects. "She was self-destructive but there was always this man by her side. That's why everybody loves it, because she ends up going with him."

Movie stars doing high profile TV is commonplace now.

But back in 2013, when Wright was offered House of Cards, it was not so common.

"But I don't know that I would have been able to get parts in movies at that time, because I was in that in-between age, so that's why I say it was a true gift." Indeed it was, running for six seasons and seeing Wright's character promoted to President in the final year after Spacey was let go.

The show's future hung in the balance, with Robin recalling: "As executive producers had to collectively decide, 'Do we want to continue the show?' I said that we should for the fans, and it was already kind of written that Claire and Frank were separated at that time in the show."

With House of Cards still a big draw on Netflix, does she get residual payments?

"Nope! It may be different now, but because we never knew from year to year whether we were going to get picked up, we had to negotiate each season separately."

Since it wrapped in 2018 she has appeared in sci-fi sequel Blade Runner 2049 and two Wonder Woman movies, as well as directing
episodes of Ozark. Next up is Prime Video series The Girlfriend, based on the novel by Michelle Francis, in which she plays an over-protective mum none too keen on her son's new partner.

Divorced from her second husband, Saint Laurent executive Clément Giraudet, since 2022, she's not keen to talk about her
personal life. But she does say of her character in the drama: "I hope I'm not that possessive, but when you think about it as a parent, whether it's a son or a daughter, you're like, 'They're just not good enough for my child'."

Serving as a producer and director on the show as well as its star, she's been based in London where much of the drama is set.

Although there's also been location work in Malaga - about which she says: "It was heaven to get out of gloomy London and be in sunny Spain."

She's joking, adding: "I love gloomy London, though. It's a great city.

"There's so much culture and there's the museums and the restaurants and the architecture. And I love the weather. I dig it."

One thing she doesn't dig: The rise of Artificial Intelligence. "It frightens me for our industry. It's such a dichotomy because I know it's going to help in the medical world tremendously - saving lives, moving with alacrity, finding cures. But everywhere else, people are going to lose jobs.

"People ask, 'Don't you think that it will take over acting?' but I don't think it ever can because I don't think it will ever get the emotion in the eyes." She muses: "We don't know what's coming tomorrow. We don't know where this business is going. We have to just keep pushing on, finding the truth, finding stories and engaging people."

Has she heard about plans for a Forrest Gump sequel, starring Timothée Chalamet?

"Tom Hanks hasn't even heard of that," she deadpans. "People make things up all the time."

And a Princess Bride sequel? She and co-star Cary Elwes were approached, but they couldn't stop laughing. "We were like, 'Are you kidding? We're gonna look like geriatric-ward characters'."

Like her mum, Dylan is a model turned actress and Hopper is an actor.

Has she given them any advice?

"I just said, 'manage your money' because you don't know when the next job's coming.

"I told both my kids, 'Just know you're getting into an industry with zero security - you have to have a back-up of some kind'.

"They've been working in restaurants and things like that in between jobs."

As for what she'd tell her younger self, Robin ponders: "To be that young and to be in a competition scenario is very destructive, because you're a baby and you're lined up with beautiful blondes with blue eyes.

They're like, 'Her arms are too skinny', 'She's too short' or 'Her boobs aren't big enough'. You have to grow out of that."

Another sigh: "I'm sure it's the same with most young girls now. I mean, look at them!

"They're getting their lips done, filler in their cheeks, and they're 21 years old.

"I want to ask them, 'What are you doing? You don't have a wrinkle on your face'."

The Girlfriend will air later this year on Prime Video