Jodie Foster Sets First Major TV Role in ‘True Detective: Night Country,’ Season Set in Alaska

“True Detective: Night Country” has found its first cast member.

Two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster has joined the cast of the popular crime anthology series and will play Detective Liz Danvers in Season 4. This marks the first major casting news to emerge from the new season, which is set in a town of Alaska where it can be dark for 24 hours a day at certain times of year.

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HBO’s official synopsis for “True Detective: Night Country” reads: “when the long winter night falls in Ennis, Alaska, the six men that operate the Tsalal Arctic Research Station vanish without a trace. To solve the case, Detectives Liz Danvers and Evangeline Navarro will have to confront the darkness they carry in themselves, and dig into the haunted truths that lie buried under the eternal ice.”

The casting follows the news that Barry Jenkins had signed on as an executive producer for Season 4. “True Detective: Night Country” will mark Jenkins’ first major collaboration with HBO since the filmmaker signed an overall deal with the cable network in 2021.

The first episode is being written by Issa Lopez, who is also attached to direct the series if it goes into production. “Night Country” would mark the first season of “True Detective” without creator and former showrunner Nic Pizzolatto at the helm. Pizzolatto was the sole writer on the early seasons of “True Detective,” but his role in the franchise has been increasingly unclear in recent years, with reports indicating that the author and HBO mutually agreed to part ways in 2020.

While this marks Foster’s first major television role as an adult, she is no stranger to the medium, having directed episodes of “House of Cards,” “Orange Is the New Black,” and “Black Mirror” for Netflix. It remains to be seen if she will direct any episodes of “True Detective: Night Country,” although HBO announced that she will be serving as an executive producer on the new season

While “True Detective: Night Country” continues to pick up steam in the development process, no premiere dates have been announced and HBO has not revealed when production might begin.

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