True Detective remains the breakout freshman TV hit of 2014, and now season two of HBO’s crime drama anthology is gearing up to bring production this fall in California. Up to now, Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn had been confirmed for series creator Nic Pizzolatto’s next installment of True Detective, while Rachel McAdams remains all but set to play season two’s female lead.
That leaves one final co-leading role, which Taylor Kitsch has long been rumored for… and has now (essentially) locked down. To clarify, Kitsch was recently interviewed by Adweek and the latter’s sources are reporting that Kitsch’s True Detective deal “is close, but not complete.” However, judging by what the actor had to say on the matter, it seems safe to say that he’s firmly in place to join the neo-Noir TV show (pending any unexpected last-second complications).
Kitsch, whose last acting gig was on HBO’s The Normal Heart TV movie, told Adwork that he’s “really excited” to join the True Detective cast set for season two, having been getting prepared for a while now. He also admitted that while it was tough to not have worked as an actor on anything for nearly a year, he’s glad that he managed to keep his schedule open for the near future, as he’s been “keeping a finger crossed that I was gong to get True.”
To recap, True Detective season two (according to the official logline) follows three cops and a “career criminal” who get caught up in “a web of conspiracy” after a public figure is murdered. Vaughn is playing said Californian crook who’s attempting to go legit, when his partner (the aforementioned victim) turns up dead. Elsewhere, Farrell will be a detective whose gambling habit has got him in deep with the mob; McAdams is up to play a California small town sheriff with personal issues (stemming from her troubled past); and Kitsch will be Farrell’s partner, a younger cop and veteran who has some dark secrets of his own.
Kitsch, like the other casting decisions for True Detective season two, is a somewhat unexpected choice, but a promising one when taken into consideration. True, his career took a hit in 2012, when both Battleship and John Carter underperformed at the box office, but Kitsch’s credibility as an actor remained largely intact even after that.
Indeed, as evidenced by his work back on the Friday Night Lights series, he’s good at TV character drama – and much like Farrell, Kitsch’s true strength as a performer has shown through best in non-Hollywood tentpole fare (see: Savages, Lone Survivor, and The Normal Heart). And judging by the nature of Pizzolatto’s writing on season one, True Detective season two ought to give Kitsch a fully-realized character to bring to life on the small screen.
Although True Detective season one was entirely directed by Cary Fukunaga, season two will feature multiple helmers, starting with Justin Lin (Fast and the Furious 3-6) for at least the first two episodes. Lin’s involvement alone is a strong indicator that the anthology show’s sophomore installment should have a very different sort of mood and atmosphere than season one’s nightmarish vision of the Deep South.
As with the rest of the elements for this new season of True Detective (the significant difference in setting, variation in casting, etc.), it’ll be interesting to see just how the final result turns out (much less what the response will be compared to season one’s). Color us intrigued to learn more and see how this thing comes together.
NEXT: True Detective Season 2 Character Details
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True Detective season two is expected to air on HBO in summer 2015.
