‘True Detective’ Taps Another Oscar-Winner to Lead Season 4

Oscar-winner Jodie Foster will lead the cast of HBO’s upcoming fourth True Detective season. This will mark her first major television role since the early 1970s. Series creator Nic Pizzolatto is not directly involved in the new season but is still attached as an executive producer.

Foster will star as Det. Liz Danvers, who joins Det. Evangeline Navarro on a case in Ennis, Alaska, where six men working at the Tsalal Arctic Research Station disappear without a trace. The detectives have to confront the darkness within themselves and learn the haunted truths buried under the ice to solve the case. Foster also joined the series as an executive producer, reports Variety.

True Detective: Night Country will be written by Issa Lopez and Alan Page Arriaga. Lopez will also direct. Moonlight filmmaker Barry Jenkins is also involved as an executive producer, alongside Adele Romanski and Mark Ceryak of Pastel. Pizzolatto, Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, and Cary Joji Fukunaga are also executive producers.

Foster is a two-time Oscar-winner for her performances in The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs. She appeared in several television shows in the early 1970s but has worked almost exclusively in movies since 1976. She starred in The Mauritanian last year and will next be seen in Nyad, which stars Annette Bening as swimmer Diana Dyad. Foster also directed episodes of House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black, Black Mirror, and Tales from the Loop. Foster earned an Emmy nomination for directing an Orange Is the New Black episode.

True Detective Season 1 aired back in 2014 and was considered a cornerstone of “prestige” television, with McConaughey and Harrelson playing their conflicted detectives working on a disturbing case. When the Colin-Farrell-starring second season failed to live up to the impossible expectations the first season set in 2015, the franchise almost died. Season 2 also starred Rachel McAdams, Vince Vaughn, and Taylor Kitsch.

However, it was revived for a third season in 2019, with Mahershala Ali as an Arkansas State Police detective and HBO requiring Pizzolatto to work with a co-writer. He teamed with Deadwood creator David Milch. Although Season 3 earned positive reviews, there was no news on a fourth season until March when Jenkins and Lopez became involved. The first three seasons are available to stream on HBO Max.