The actor Taylor Kitsch, known as an action hero in Battleship and John Carter as well as for a long-running dramatic role in Friday Night Lights, has confirmed he’s part of the cast for True Detective’s second season.
It has long been rumoured that Kitsch would play a part in the crime drama, whose first series was hugely acclaimed for its blend of hardboiled plotting and dreamily beautiful photography, along with blue-chip performances from Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. Its second season has already signed up big names in Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn.
“I’m really excited,” Kitsch told AdWeek, which was at pains to say the deal was not yet actually completed. “I’ve just been prepping. It’s been almost a full year since I’ve been on camera, so I’m itching, man. I’m overdue.” Kitsch said he had turned a lot of work down, “keeping a finger crossed that I was going to get True”.
Season two will, like the first, be written by show creator Nic Pizzolatto, whom Kitsch credits as having reinvigorated him. “Having this meeting with Nic Pizzolatto, it kind of brought me back to when I was here in New York and why I wanted to be a actor, why you struggle and why you don’t quit. And when we’re talking, I mean he’s obviously incredibly smart and passionate, so that rubs off.”
Of the first season, he said: “It was so grounded. It could really happen. This is very similar, and I love that.” He wouldn’t be drawn on plot details about the second season, which is set in a completely new place (Los Angeles) with new characters and storylines. Kitsch said only that it has a contemporary setting, but that the characters have a 1970s “vibe”.
Pizzolatto has previously said there would be four central characters, meaning that there is one berth remaining; Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss has been rumoured for the part.
