"True Detective" Close to Season 3 Greenlight; Mahershala Ali Confirmed to Star
by Nellie Andreeva
July 26, 2017


At HBO’s summer TCA presentation, president of programming Casey Bloys gave an update on the status of "True Detective", which had been awaiting a Season 3 greenlight.

Bloys confirmed that Oscar-winning Moonlight actor Mahershala Ali has closed a deal to star in the potential third season of the anthology series. Bloys said he had read five finished scripts.

“They are terrific. … I was very impressed and excited,” he said. “We are talking to directors, and when we have a director we want to hire, it will be a go.”

http://deadline.com/2017/07/true-detective-mahershala-ali-cast-season-3-hbo-1202136729/

"True Detective" Season 3 a Go at HBO, Premise Revealed, Jeremy Saulnier Joins Creator Nic Pizzolatto as Director
by Nellie Andreeva
August 31, 2017


HBO has officially greenlighted a third season of Nic Pizzolatto’s crime anthology series "True Detective". The pickup was considered a formality after the network earlier this summer closed a deal with Oscar winner Mahershala Ali to star in the new installment, with the green light contingent on locking in a director.

Jeremy Saulnier (The Green Room) has now been set as a Season 3 director alongside Pizzolatto who will make his directorial debut on the series.





Season 3 will tell the story of a macabre crime in the heart of the Ozarks, and a mystery that deepens over decades and plays out in three separate time periods. Ali will play the lead role of Wayne Hays, a state police detective from Northwest Arkansas.

“Nic has written truly remarkable scripts,” said HBO president Casey Bloys. “With his ambitious vision and Mahershala Ali and Jeremy Saulnier aboard, we are excited to embark on the next installment of True Detective.”

“I’m tremendously thrilled to be working with artists at the level of Mahershala and Jeremy,” Pizzolatto said. “I hope the material can do justice to their talents, and we’re all very excited to tell this story.”

http://deadline.com/2017/08/true-detective-season-3-pickup-hbo-premise-jeremy-saulnier-nic-pizzolatto-direct-mahershala-ali-star-1202159482/

Mahershala Ali's True Detective character was originally written for a white actor (https://variety.com/2018/film/news/mahershala-ali-true-detective-character-originally-white-1203078794/)

Ali tells John David Washington in a Variety Actors on Actors conversation that he was originally offered the supporting role on the third season of the HBO series because the lead actor was written to be white. But Ali convinced by creator Nic Pizzolatto to cast him after texting him pictures of his grandfather as a state police officer in real life. “I was like, ‘See, we existed in this space. In the ’60s and the ’70s. State police officers,'” Ali recounts. “I was like, ‘I think your story would be served, I think the story would be improved in this case, if this lead character was black.'” Ali adds: “I could’ve played that second lead, that supporting career. But in my mind, I was like, ‘I’ve done this my entire career though. I’ve never done that,' At that time, I’m 43 years old. If it don’t happen now, it really may not happen.”