McConaughey, Harrelson pumped for ‘ epic’ prime- time crime
True Detective
Sunday, 8 p. m., HBO Canada
PASADENA, Calif. — Under normal circumstances Matthew McConaughey wouldn’t be caught dead using the word “epic.”
Epic, though, is the word HBO’s publicity machine — and more than a few early reviewers — have used to describe True Detective, the new, eightepisode murder mystery that debuts Sunday on the premium pay- TV channel, in both the U. S. and Canada.
McConaughey plays Louisiana back- country police detective Rust Cohle, an obsessive, onetime undercover narcotics officer beset by personal demons. In a classic case of casting against type, Woody Harrelson plays his more grounded, even- tempered detective partner, Martin Hart, who hits the bottle hard off the job but plays strictly by- the- book while on the job.
Together, the two face a sudden spate of gothic- themed serial killings that remind them of an unsolved case that dogged them 17 years earlier. The series, based on the acclaimed crime novel by Nic Pizzolatto and directed with an eerie, Nordic noir look by Sundance veteran Cary Fukunaga, flashes back- and- forth in time between present day and the mid- 1990s, when Cohle and Hart first faced their mysterious, faceless killer.
A lot is riding on True Detective, as HBO prepares for life after Boardwalk Empire and True Blood, both of which will end after their coming seasons.
None of that mattered to McConaughey, though, as he took on the role of True Detective.
All that mattered, he said, as he faced reporters at the winter gathering of the Television Critics Association, was that it tell a compelling story and tell it well, with rich, vibrant characters.
Being cast opposite Harrelson, a reputed wild man offcamera with no small gift for acting on- camera, helped.
“Part of why we’re friends and part of why we do what we do the way we do is that we’re on each other’s frequency,” McConaughey said. “We add on, we affirm each other, and we one- up each other. It can turn into improv and it can go and go, into the ether and then some. But this was different. There was opposition here. This is two guys with a very different take on a very real situation. This is the first time we worked together where there’s real opposition between the characters.”
While Harrelson has previous TV experience mainly as character Woody Boyd on the sitcom Cheers, McConaughey, a career film actor, found it hard at first to adjust to television’s pace.
“One day we did 29 pages ( of script),” McConaughey said. “That was the biggest mountain I’ve ever had to deal with. I said to Woody, ‘ If we get into this, we gotta just dance.’ We went in, sat down. And we did it in one day.”
McConaughey added that the line between television and film has essentially vanished. “It’s a different time in television,” he said. “There’s no longer this feeling that if you have a successful film career and somebody brings up television, you shy away.
“All I know is I read the script for the first two episodes, and I was in. At the time, I was just looking for quality.”