True Detective returns on January 14 for a brand new season. This time, we visit the fictional town of Ennis, Alaska, which experiences seemingly endless winter nights. The mystery revolves around the disappearance of eight men who reside in the Tsalal Arctic Research Station. Detectives Liz Danvers and Evangaline Navarro must work together to discover the truth.
Recently, AIPT had the opportunity to hear the stars of the series, Jodie Foster and Kali Reis, chat about True Detective: Night Country. They play Danvers and Navarro respectively. The pair covered many subjects including filming in the harsh conditions and insight on their characters and approach.
Foster shared her views on the new setting and the new season fits with the True Detective aura. “A lot of familiarity breeds contempt for sure and this is a small, small town. Weird that is even more isolated and insular because of the weather, right? People must survive each other as well as survive the environment. There is something very beautiful and kind of mystical and eerie about this idea of a place where we don’t see the sun for you know three months.” She continued, “Where it’s dark all the time and cold. I think it really served the True Detective model of let’s locate the place first and then that place, the Americana and weirdness of that place, in some ways will inform the psychological space of that character.”
The narrative of Night Country also heavily involves the indigenous community of Alaska. For Reis, who is of Native American descent, she wanted an authentic depiction for her character. She knows that indigenous communities are not a monolith and the experiences can differ.
“What was really important to me as a mixed indigenous woman was to remind myself and everybody around that not all native American people and indigenous people are created equal. I’m all the way from Northeast woodland tribes and I wanted to make sure that I was as authentic portraying a Iñupiaq that was mixed with Dominican.”
Reis had little variety to draw from past depictions of characters similar to her own. Hollywood has this trope for Afro-indigenous women that she wanted to dispel. “I’m playing you. How would you want to see yourself on screen. Tell me stories. Let me know. I didn’t grow up seeing my type of face, an Afro-indigenous woman, playing something that wasn’t an indigenous role of a victimization woman in the past. That was really important too. This is a current time, a real job a real woman doing real life things having real life struggles. It was extremely important for me to be able to have Iñupiaq people be able to see themselves in Navarro.”
The manner of the story meant arduous filming conditions. Though True Detective: Night Country takes place in Alaska, the show was filmed in Iceland. Foster talked about the environment and how it actually contributed to the series.
“I don’t think anyone could be ready for that cold. It doesn’t matter how many pairs of boots you have on and warmers and all that. It really influences how you speak. How you act. Your irritability. I think we really used that on screen. I think it was important actually to really feel the real depth of the cold in that place and it really comes out. It’s very different had we been shooting on a soundstage somewhere in our comfy numbers.”
Reis agreed sharing her own thoughts. “I think being a night shoot added to the depth and darkness of the actual story we’re telling. It’s a character within itself. It was really cold. It was really dark. And those northern lights…It just added to it. It makes you really, really feel the cold of the night. The vast unending abyss of just darkness. It’s so eerie it adds to it.”
One big difference of Night Country compared to previous seasons is the female perspective from its characters to the story to the showrunner and writer. Issa López even discussed it when she spoke with the press. Foster spoke about how Danvers and Navarro don’t fit into the typical lone wolf male investigator.
“They both have very strong personal lives. They both are connected and they are in relationships even though their relationships are messed up. They are in relationships. Very different in some ways than the sort of male detective stereotype who’s alone smoking a cigar drinking his cognac at night by himself. Women learn through connection, and their relationships are very revealing for who they are as people and who they are individually.”
True Detective: Night Country premieres January 14 on HBO.
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