Shot in Iceland, ‘True Detective’ still creates ‘love song to Nome’
The latest season of
HBO hit “True Detective” is set in Alaska, leaning into its tagline “Night Country” to explore the depths of a dark, frigid winter in the northernmost points of the state. The series takes place in Ennis, a fictionalized amalgam of northern villages Kotzebue, Utqiagvik and Nome, according to creator Issa Lopez.
The story follows law enforcement agents played by Kali Reis and Jodie Foster as they investigate the mysterious disappearance of eight men who worked at an arctic research center. As they proceed, trooper Evangeline Navarro (Reis) and local police chief Liz Danvers (Foster) realize the case is tied to another involving a missing Indigenous woman from the area.
It was shot almost exclusively in Iceland, forcing the production to attempt to replicate the state and its people on a large scale for a major prestige series.
Lopez initially conceived a story set in Alaska and began to write it during the early days of the pandemic. She said she followed locals’ social media accounts to get dayto-day depictions of their lives and listened to radio stations from the area.
Lopez visited all three communities during the writing and preproduction process once travel opened up. She said her travel included a dog sled trip, a snow machine excursion onto sea ice and meeting with residents to enjoy local food and culture.
“In spite of all the research I had done, there were so many things that I learned in that trip,” she said in a recent media roundtable.
In the end, the decision was made to shoot in
Iceland, for a number of reasons, including a larger infrastructure to handle the major production as well as a steep tax break.
The show ended up in Keflavik, a southwestern town that had housed a U.S. Army base during World War II, giving it some architectural similarities to American cities.
They took special care designing a main street in Ennis, resulting in what Lopez described as a “love song to Nome.”
The Arctic winter plays a major part in the narrative. The action takes place starting in December, in the middle of a lengthy dearth of daylight.
“There’s something very beautiful and mystical and eerie about this idea of a place where we don’t see the sun for three months, where it’s dark all the time and cold,” Foster said in a media roundtable.
A pair of Alaska Native women are producers on the show — Princess Daazhraii Johnson and Cathy Tagnak Rexford. The duo spearheaded the show’s efforts to bring accurate and authentic representation to the screen. They led an Iñupiaq advisory council that was formed in the early days of production.
Lopez said Johnson and Rexford were involved
in early revisions of the script, poking holes in parts of the narrative or characters they didn’t think fit. Lopez said there were plenty of passionate conversations and debates, but she felt confident that the results were an accurate representation that also make for good drama.
Johnson and Rexford also advised on home interiors, and Alaska artist Sarah Whalen-Lunn was a major part of the design team, creating tattoos for Iñupiaq characters as well as signs and graffiti in Ennis.
The show incorporates a number of issues that may be recognizable to Alaskans, including missing and murdered Indigenous women.
Reis, who is of African American and Native American descent, said the series could bring more broad exposure to what she called “an epidemic that has been plaguing our people since the dawn of time.”
“That’s the hope,” she said. “A big production like this you have eyes on it that wouldn’t normally (be on it) . ... The more attention we put on things like this and make it a big deal, that can motivate change and conversations and it just needs to be talked about more.”