[1] Willimon attended John Burroughs School, where he took drama classes taught by Jon Hamm[7][8] and graduated in 1995.

[13] After graduating, he worked for the ministry of the interior for the Estonian government in Tallinn as part of a fellowship,[5] during which he sorted through and wrote summaries of thousands of pages of E.U.-related documents.

"[1] During graduate school, he received a visual arts scholarship for a proposal to create 40 lithographs about paranoia, and lived in South Africa for a year.

[14] At Juilliard, he wrote a play, Farragut North, that was inspired by his experience as press aide for Dean's 2004 campaign for President.

[6][9] In fall 2008, it premiered off Broadway at the Atlantic Theater Company in a production starring John Gallagher Jr., Chris Noth, and Olivia Thirlby.

It starred Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Evan Rachel Wood, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Marisa Tomei, and Jeffrey Wright.

In September 2017, Willimon was elected for a two-year term as President of the Writers Guild of America, East, running unopposed.

The series also stars Kate Mara, Corey Stoll, Michael Kelly, Neve Campbell, Michel Gill, Jayne Atkinson, Sebastian Arcelus and Lars Mikkelsen.

[29] On November 3, 2017, Netflix fired Spacey from House of Cards and cut all ties with the actor following several allegations of sexual misconduct.

[30] When the accusations first surfaced in late October of that year, Willimon released a statement saying, "During the time I worked with Kevin Spacey on House of Cards, I neither witnessed nor was aware of any inappropriate behavior on set or off".

[32] Willimon denied witnessing or knowing about the alleged assault, but said, “I am heartsick that anyone on the crew had to endure this sort of behavior.