“True Detective: Night Country” stars on “Silence of the Lambs” connections and chilling new season

Showrunner Issa López and stars Jodie Foster and Kali Reis thaw out the icy layers of the show's highly anticipated fourth season.

"Hello, Clarice."

It's been more than three decades since Jodie Foster heard Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter practically purr those words at her in The Silence of the Lambs, but when an eerily similar scene was shot on set of her new series True Detective: Night Country, Foster says she still couldn't help but smile.

"There's one moment where one of our characters who's sort of lying in a hospital bed and is disgusting and is writhing in pain and making horrible sounds, suddenly says, 'Hello, Navarro,'" she tells EW, referring to the character played by boxer-turned-actor Kali Reis. "Both of us laughed a little bit when he said that."

The fourth installment of the acclaimed HBO detective anthology series, Night Country takes place during the long sunless winter days in Ennis, Alaska, when eight men who operate the Tsalal Arctic Research Station vanish without a trace. Two detectives with a fraught past who want nothing to do with the other — Liz Danvers (Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Reis) — are called in to solve the increasingly mysterious case, and in doing so will have to confront their own darkness and trauma... as well as whatever haunted truths lie dormant under the unending ice.

Any nods — subtle or otherwise — to Silence of the Lambs are purely intentional, says Night Country creator and director Issa López, who rewatched season 1 of True Detective for research and was struck by the similarities to David Fincher's Seven. "It's massively influenced by Seven. And then Seven is obviously a direct descendant of Silence of the Lambs. So going to the origin and embracing the very thing that started the whole trend, which is Jodie, and putting her back in the universe, I think is speaking to the fans," she says, adding, "It's impossible to do serial killers the same way after Hannibal. The book is extraordinary, but it was the movie [that did that] and it was Jodie, so it was a no-brainer to go back there."

For her part, Foster feels it's "a wonderful comparison." "Honestly. I love the movie and I had the same experience making this show as I did making Silence. And I feel like those are the only two experiences I've ever had where you jump on the material because the text is so wonderful and it speaks to you and there's so much that you're drawn to in ways that you understand — and in ways that you don't understand," she says. (As for comparing her two detective characters, Danvers and Clarice, Foster laughs: "I suppose that's okay. I've only done it twice and it is 30-some years later. It is a great movie. So I don't mind the comparison.")

One thing López didn't want to be compared to, at least at first, was to the first three seasons of True Detective. But, that's because when she envisioned the project originally, it had nothing to do with the show. López says she initially pitched an idea for a project called Night Country, which she describes as "a murder mystery in the ice," and it was HBO who suggested it could be True Detective instead — an idea she says never even crossed her mind. Once the two parties agreed, Night Country became True Detective: Night Country, and López had the unenviable task of "recalling what connected so powerfully with so many people around the world, but at the same time, doing it in your own voice and making it your own."

The Tigers Are Not Afraid director says her main approach was to not imitate the previous three seasons, which were the brainchild of creator Nic Pizzolatto, who only executive produces here: "Maybe the one way to capture the true spirit of this is do the absolute opposite. That this is so not that, that it ends up staring straight at it and in the end it does feel like the same show." (Or, as Reis so aptly puts it: "In contrast to the first season being so hot and steaming, two guys, this is freezing cold and two female leads. But there's so much more to it — it's very deep," she says, adding with a cheeky grin, "It's the tip of the iceberg, I guess you'd say.")

Still, López knew she wanted to keep some True Detective staples intact: A character-driven story focusing on two troubled, unconventional detectives with a strong emphasis on atmosphere? Check. A dash of the supernatural? Check. Soul-searching, lengthy car rides? Check. López even threw in some major Easter eggs from season 1 for good measure. One staple she didn't include, though, is time jumps. While an unsolved previous case and Danvers and Navarro's pasts are explored extensively, the season is firmly set in the present, because jumping around felt too "gimmicky" for the story López wanted to tell, she says.

"One of the things that I really love about it is that [the show has] worlds that you've never seen before, that have this creepy, spooky, thrilling tone that mirrors the interior journey of both of the tortured detectives," says Foster of what caught her eye about the role. Plus, she says, she loves that her character is "not centered." "I think that's what I was drawn to was watching and being really a part of a new and fascinating and interesting cultural generational trauma unfold through Kali's character and through Navarro, and then through all of the people around her. And I'm sort of the lovable antagonist," she says with a laugh.

Reis, who is considered the first Indigenous American female boxing world champion and a Native rights advocate in addition to her credits as an actor, relished the opportunity to bring to life not just a story about Indigenous people, but specifically Alaska Natives — in this case, the Iñupiaq. "It was really important to me as a performer and representing Alaska Native — I'm not Alaska Native — was just having the right representation and being able to kind of talk with Iñupiaq people and asking, 'What would you like to see? How would you like to see yourself on screen?" Reis says.

She continues, "It's such an important story. There are stories of missing and murdered Indigenous women and people. And even the supernatural part of the show has a lot to do with the Indigenous and Alaska Native stories, and that was really important because there's dark and light with everything." Climate change and the Iñupiaq's fight to protect the landscape that's so integral to their way of life is a crucial aspect of the season, and to the character of Navarro herself, which Reis describes as "at surface level, a hard-shell ex-military cop." But in true True Detective form, there's a lot more to her than that.

Reis hopes fans are able to appreciate all of Night Country's many, many layers. "I just hope that the True Detective fans see this story and are proud of it. And also for an Indigenous person watching this, seeing their faces represented and seeing them fight for climate change in this show, it's a real thing to take something from that as well. This is entertainment, but there's real issues in this that we're trying to highlight," she says.

Foster, who admits her character has "so much to learn" at the start of the season, agrees. "I feel very proud that the Indigenous experience is so centered and that it isn't just lip service to representation or counting screen time," she says. "It really is almost everybody, except for me, in the show is a part of that voice, which I really learned a lot from. And I feel very blessed that I got to be part of this because it's someone else's time, it's their time, it's not my time. It's my time to serve, and it's their time."

True Detective: Night Country — which also stars Finn Bennett, Fiona Shaw, Christopher Eccleston, Isabella Star LaBlanc, John Hawkes and more — hits HBO and Max on Jan. 14, at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Episodes drop weekly, with the finale set to air Feb. 18.

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