Over three decades after Jodie Foster starred in “The Silence of the Lambs” (and won an Oscar in the process), she credits “True Detective: Night Country” for providing a “deep, gnawing curiosity” that launched her back into the horror genre.
“I am picky,” Foster told TheWrap of accepting roles. “I just want to do good things, so I wait till something moves me and shifts me and changes me and I have questions about it, and I never know where that’s going to come from as an actor.”
After starring in the 1991 horror classic opposite Anthony Hopkins, Foster famously opted not to reprise her role as Clarice Starling in the 2001 film sequel “Hannibal,” and was subsequently replaced by Julianne Moore.
“I rely on that deep, gnawing curiosity in order to attach,” Foster continued. “And if I don’t have that curiosity, then I’d just rather do something else.”
Foster, who also recently starred in sports drama “Nyad” alongside Annette Bening, was immediately attracted to the prospect of joining the fourth installment of the HBO anthology series, saying “the second they said ‘True Detective’ I was reading within minutes.”
“That first season meant so much to me — I’d seen it a couple of times,” Foster said, joining the millions of fans worldwide who were drawn to the inaugural season of the show, which starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as detectives Rustin Cohle and Marty Hart, respectively.
“I couldn’t not choose it — it was just too good,” Foster said. “I loved the original ‘True Detective’ and was a big fan. I feel so honored to be a part of this project and to be in one of the anthologies.”
In “True Detective: Night Country,” which was created, written and directed by Mexican horror filmmaker Issa López, Foster stars as detective Liz Danvers, who joins forces with estranged former partner Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) as the pair investigate the disappearance of several men working at the Tsalal Arctic Research Station in small town Ennis, Alaska.
Hardened by loss in her past, Danvers is forced to confront her grief as the fourth season blends hard-nosed detective work with a touch of the supernatural and a hefty dose of horror, which López told TheWrap pays homage to the first season’s tone.
“The script just gripped me and I saw such resonance and so many things that I wanted to talk about — grief and how the dead walk among us,” Foster said. “And then I met Issa — that did it pretty much — that meeting with Issa. I knew that I wanted to serve her vision and to help her get there. I would do anything for her. I think we just had that immediate connection.”
Foster’s background in the genre was also embraced by López, who applauded Jonathan Demme’s “Silence of the Lambs” for starting “an entire genre of horrific sinister killers.”
“[‘Silence of the Lambs’] begat ‘Seven’ and from that ‘True Detective’ came and from ‘True Detective’ came ‘Night Country,’ so I felt that it was honoring the tradition and the genre to go back to the thing that had made that first incursion so extraordinary,” López told TheWrap.
“True Detective: Night Country” airs new episodes Sundays on HBO and Max.
