Trivia / True Detective

• Actor-Inspired Element: Wayne Hays was written as a white character and Roland West was meant for Mahershala Ali. Ali sent photos to Nic Pizzolatto of his grandfather, a state policeman in the 60s, and got the main role after proving it was plausible.
• Actor-Shared Background: Colin Farrell has struggled with alcoholism and at this point he's played so many alcoholics that he's probably an expert at that too.
• Award Category Fraud: Many were not happy when the show was run as drama at the Emmys rather than miniseries (like the similarly-constructed American Horror Story and Fargo), presumably so it wouldn't have to compete against the also HBO-produced movie The Normal Heart.
• Blooper: In the first episode of Season 4, a VHS box for The Thing (1982) can be seen prominently amidst the film collection in Tsalal Station. Many people noticed it as it's the perfect Shout Out for horror in an Arctic Research Station. The blooper is in how the box is in one shot but not in the ones of the movie shelf before or after.
• California Doubling: Season 4 is set in Alaska, but is filmed in Iceland. According to Jodie Foster in her appearance in Jimmy Kimmel, she said that there was concern that the area the production crew wanted to film was difficult to go to due to a lack of roads.
• The Cast Showoff: "No Use" was composed and sung by John Hawkes himself for the scene in Season 4's "Part 5" where Hank Prior is playing his acoustic guitar.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Season 1 director Cary Fukunaga has admitted that he became incredibly disillusioned with his work on the show, and was overly critical of his partnership with Nic Pizzolatto, which he felt became progressively more unfair as he gained more control over the series.
  • Nic Pizzolato has made some rather nasty comments towards Season 4 (the first season he hasn't been directly involved with, outside of an Executive Producer role) on Instagram, calling the show's inclusion of Rust's father Travis and a Call-Back to the Tuttle family 'so stupid'.
• Dawson Casting: Isabella Star LaBlanc was 25 when she played Liz Danvers's teenage stepdaughter in Season 4.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Colin Farrell gained twenty pounds (nine kilograms) to play Ray Velcoro.
• Executive Meddling: According to Nic Pizzolatto, all of the nude scenes in season one were pay cable mandated. He also stated he would be happy with no nudity, which is reflected in Season 3's lack of sex scenes (with the two that do happen occurring offscreen).
• Fake American:
  • Colin Farrell is Irish.
  • Carmen Ejogo (Amelia Reardon) is British.
  • Sarah Gadon (Elisa Montogomery) is Canadian.
  • Christopher Eccleston and Finn Bennett are both British actors playing Americans in Season 4.
  • Aka Niviâna (Julia Navarro) is an Inuk from Greenland. Nivi Pedersen (Annie Kowtok) is also from Greenland.
  • The Irish Fiona Shaw plays the Alaskan native Rose in Season 4.
• Method Acting: To prepare, Matthew McConaughey created a four hundred fifty-page analysis, the "Four Stages of Rustin Cohle", to study his character's evolution over the course of the story.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Playing a nihilistic, alcoholic detective is not the usual fare for Matthew McConaughey. He makes it work magnificently.
  • Also, it's nice to see Woody Harrelson playing a character who isn't "creepy" or "off" in some way, after a long period of being more-or-less typecast as such.
  • David Morse as a hippie
  • C.S. Lee as a serious bureaucrat
  • Vince Vaughn as a tough-as-nails mobster
  • Colin Farrell as a straight corrupt police officer
• Production Nickname: The Big Bad of the first season is called The Creature in the Tall Grass by the staff.
• The Red Stapler: The King in Yellow became an overnight bestseller on Amazon due to the numerous references to the previously obscure 1895 work.
• Underage Casting: Mahershala Ali is only 13 years older than his onscreen son Ray Fisher.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Christian Bale and Jessica Chastain were pursued for lead roles in the second season, but both passed on the project due to the significant time commitment the show would've required.
  • Jaimie Alexander, Malin Åkerman, Jessica Biel, Cate Blanchett, Oona Chaplin, Rosario Dawson, Brit Marling, Elisabeth Moss and Kelly Reilly were all up for the role of Detective Ani Bezzerides.
  • David Cronenberg was offered the opportunity to direct the first episode of the second season, but he declined because he felt the script was poor.
  • Per an interview in Variety, Issa López had intended for Evangeline Navarro to be a Latina. After learning more about the racial demographics of rural Alaska, she decided to make Navarro Iñupiaq.
• Working Title: The Murder Ballads.
• You Look Familiar: Christopher Berry appears in Season 1 as both Marie Fontenot's uncle Danny and unlucky informant Guy Francis. He's hard to recognize as both characters because of the prosthetics used to make him look palsied and paralyzed in the former.

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