The importance of Jeff Beal’s contribution to House of Cards can’t be understated. In any given episode you’ll notice that most of what’s generating a feeling of unease or conspiracy or urgency is actually the score. Without Beal’s music you would lose so much of the intensity, and critical layers of subtext or subversion.
“It’s the type of show where a lot of times you can’t show what’s really happening,” says Beal. “Because there are these agendas, there’s a subterfuge of stuff happening with people—whether it’s a manipulation or a power struggle or something like that—where a lot of times, because of the nature of the characters, we’re not always showing you that conflict.”
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“Gillian always had a great sense of music,” says Newman. “Do you remember a movie she did called Mrs. Soffel? Mark Isham did the score, and it was an amazing use of music. It was clear to me that Gillian had developed ears and she was interested in new sounds and all that. I wanted to do Mrs. Soffel back in the day, and Little Women was like 11 years later. Gillian was always a director I had my eye on, just because I loved the way she used music.”
