Cary Fukunaga, the director and executive-producer of highly-praised “True Detective,” Season 1, admitted that he never wanted to be involved with the second season of the HBO show — he’s also never seen it.
“I had nothing to do with Season 2,” Fukunaga told Interview magazine, where fellow filmmaker Michael Moore asked the tough questions. “And I haven’t seen it yet. But I think it was also set up for far too high expectations.”
He added: “I had never planned on doing Season 2. I don’t even think I realized how much work Season 1 would be. But I try not to do the same thing twice.”
In the interview, the filmmaker also talked about his family’s history, what career he was heading towards before he became a filmmaker, and how he got incredibly sick during the pre-production of “Beasts of No Nation” in Africa.
See five of the best revelations of Fukunaga’s interview with Moore below.
1. His dad and uncles were born in a Japanese internment camp, which affected his career in film: “Basically everyone of Japanese ancestry was put into these camps during World War II–except for, ironically, those in Hawaii, because they needed the labor. My father was born in a camp. My uncles were born in a camp. First they were all in Topaz, in Utah, and then in Tule Lake in Northern California, which was a ‘no-no’ camp, where they put people who said ‘no’ to forswearing their allegiance to Japan and ‘no’ to fighting for the military … I don’t know how it comes out, but at least the way I look at the government and what the government did to my family… It takes the wool from your eyes about how the world works, to show you that nothing’s necessarily fair, and that you might have a hard life.”
2. He got Malaria during the pre-production of “Beasts of No Nation”: “It wasn’t that bad. The lucky part was that we were still in pre-pro, and by the time we started to shoot, I felt pretty much back to fighting condition. And I think you probably know this, too: When you know you have a certain amount of work to finish, you just don’t allow yourself to get sick again.”
3. He was on his way to becoming a pro-snowboarder before he wanted to become a filmmaker: “Sometime around 20, 21 years old, I was in France and had blown out my knee. I couldn’t compete for a couple of months, and I didn’t want to just sit around doing nothing, so I got back into theater actually.”
4. He never wanted to executive-produce season two of “True Detective”: “I had never planned on doing Season 2. I don’t even think I realized how much work Season 1 would be. But I try not to do the same thing twice. And I definitely would never have done two seasons of the same show. That’s far too big of a commitment. After Season 1 was done, I was very happy to move on, back to feature film and a completely different world to immerse myself in. And whatever I do next, hopefully, will feel just as different as anything I’ve ever done before.”
5. He gets frustrated when people ask him why he made “Beasts of No Nation”: “It’s really hard to make a film about this subject matter with the knowledge I have of Africa, knowing that it portrays Africa, or some version of Africa, in chaos. The most difficult question is, ‘Why this movie?’ And it’s the most frustrating question. I think these movies are extremely important. We want to be moved by what we watch. And it’s not a manipulation to show darker or sadder or more tragic things. It’s an important part of being a member of society to know what’s happening in the world and to know where you fall in it and what you can do about it. But then you get, ‘Well, why don’t you show a positive side of Africa? Where is that movie?’”