Lesbian icon Jodie Foster is set to star in one of the leading roles in the fourth season of HBO’s True Detective. The two-time Academy Award-winner will play Detective Liz Danvers in True Detective: Night Country. Jodie Foster as a detective? *drool*
There were no official plot details released when the new season was announced to be in development in March. However, according to Variety, we now have some idea of what to expect:
“Now it is known that in the fourth season, 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 (Foster) 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.”
What has she been up to?
Jodie is an acting veteran, with her portfolio including roles in The Silence of the Lambs, Taxi Driver and The Accused. Speaking to CBC Radio’s Q in 2021, Jodie said about the characters she has played: “I do think that my characters are drawn to doing the right thing…That’s something that’s definitely a big part of my life.”
Jodie Foster had recently won a Golden Globe for her performance in The Mauritanian when the interview aired. The film, which is based on a true story, follows Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster), who is a criminal defence lawyer that takes on the case of Mohamedou Ould Salahi (Tahar Rahim), who was detained in Guantanamo bay for 14 years without charge.
She sure does love playing the crime-fighter: whether it be portraying an FBI trainee in Silence of the Lambs, a passionate lawyer on The Mauritanian, or a detective in True Detective, Jodie loves the law.
The pattern seems obvious, but Jodie admits she only noticed it with age: “You know, you have to be a certain age to look back on your patterns and go like, ‘Oh, there’s a pattern,'” Foster laughed. “I think you don’t really realize it as you’re jumping from movie to movie … but yeah, I’m definitely interested in people that are trying to evolve and get better.”
Jodie is known for being “selective and uncompromising” about her roles. “I don’t love biopics,” she said. “Sometimes I find the writing isn’t very good. You know, usually the idea for a biopic is the person is born, they do some incredible thing, and then they meet famous people, and then they die. And for me, I just need a lot more than that.”
The Mauritanian just hit differently for Jodie, and it was largely because of central character Salahi. “He grows and changes through his experience,” she said. “That was the story that I wanted to tell. I was amazed by this man, who had been through everything that he’d been through, and through his faith … was able to come out the other end as somebody who is forgiving and affectionate and joyful and has an amazing sense of humour.”
Jodie can afford to be uncompromising with which roles she takes on and how she tackles them because she finds meaning in her family. “What I realized as I got older, I mean, I always thought that the only meaningful work was making movies,” she said. “And then I did wake up at a certain point and realized, like, wow, movies are not everything, and there are other ways to find meaning.”
“That’s been an interesting path as well,” she said. “Just finding meaning by doing things, by giving back to people, by serving.”
