While the decision to put the show in the Drama category instead of Miniseries for Emmy consideration rankled some, it paid off for HBO, with "True Detective" earning twelve nominations this morning. So now, all eyes are on the second season, and particularly on Nic Pizzolatto, who once again is writing the whole damn thing himself (impressive). And today he reveals that the next season is getting bigger, while dialing back a bit on some of the plot details he previously hinted at.
Chatting with The Daily Beast, Pizzolatto revealed that while he’s still utilizing the characters he created for season two a while ago, more are being added. "…since then they’ve deepened and become richer," he said of the new parts. "Creating new characters for Season 2 was the same experience as creating Rust and Marty. They didn’t exist until I created them, then in their creation I developed a personal attachment to them. I think it’s the same in anything you write. It’s your job to come up with compelling characters who speak to an individual authenticity. If I’m not interested in the characters I can’t go on. I have to be fascinated by them. It’s the same job as Season 1 to me."
Asked if the next season still had three lead characters as Pizzolatto mentioned a couple of months back, the writer said, "That ballooned a little bit. I would say there are four central roles."
The writer played coy on the question on whether any of the leads were women (a criticism he faced for season 1), and he also played down the setting of the film which he previously said would focus on the transportation system and center on "the lesser known venues of California" trying "to capture a certain psychosphere ambience of the place."
"I would actually just stick with ‘set in California,’ " Pizzolatto said, declining a chance to elaborate further.
And one last thing—all those casting rumors with Jessica Chastain, Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Christian Bale, and Josh Brolin being linked to roles? Pizzolatto says that casting hasn’t even started, so perhaps cool your jets folks. "I’m hitting the halfway mark on the scripts," he said, which likely means a lot longer of a wait than anticipated before the ball gets moving on this in any real way. But that said, William Friedkin did tell us he met with Pizzolatto about possibly directing episodes of the show so it’s hard to say how far away HBO is from making formal announcements. But no matter what, Pizzolatto is promising more of what you loved the first time around.
" ‘True Detective’ is a densely layered work with resonant details and symbology and rich characterization under the guise of one of the forms of this mystery genre. That’s what we shoot for," he said. "I think there’s a certain atmosphere that you’ll find is a consistent element in ‘True Detective’ going forward."
We can’t wait.