Time may be a flat circle, but one of the stars of True Detective‘s acclaimed first season says he won’t be looping back around to reprise the role. Woody Harrelson, who led the debut season of HBO’s popular mystery anthology series True Detective alongside Matthew McConaughey, shot down any notion that he might return to the show.
Harrelson, promoting his upcoming film Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, appeared on the 3rd Hour of Today on Friday. During the interview, host Dylan Dreyer mentioned that McConaughey had previously suggested the pair might be interested in coming back to True Detective if they thought it was “good enough.”
“Matthew’s so funny,” Harrelson replied. “But in fairness, never. Not a chance.”
He’s Not Looking to Go Back
The series, which premiered in January 2014 on HBO, starred Harrelson and McConaughey as Louisiana State Police homicide detectives Marty Hart and Rust Cohle, respectively. The eight-episode series followed the detectives across two timelines, 1995 and 2012 as they investigated a brutal murder and uncovered a strange conspiracy. Season 1 was widely acclaimed, with many critics calling it one of the best shows of the year. It’s for that reason, Harrelson explained on Today, that he had no interest in revisiting it.
“Because it turned out great,” Harrelson said. “I love that it turned out the way it did. If anything, doing another season would, I think, tarnish that.”
Harrelson and McConaughey’s season was followed up with a season starring Colin Farrel, Rachel McAdams, and Taylor Kitsch as cops in California; a season set in the Ozarks starring Mahershala Ali; and Night Country, a fourth season starring Jodie Foster as a cop in far northern Alaska. Night Country was the first season to be written and run by someone other than series creator Nic Pizzolatto — though he has indicated he might want to return to the franchise, which is what prompted any discussion of Harrelson and McConaughey returning.
True Detective Creator Nic Pizzolatto Says He Wants to Make a Follow-Up to Season 1
Pizzolatto, who appears to be displeased with HBO’s choice to make a season of True Detective without him at the helm, has been talking about wanting to make a proper return to the show, though there are no concrete plans for that to happen. In an appearance on Nothing Left Unsaid podcast in May, he revealed he had an idea for a new season that would once more focus on Harrelson and McConaughey’s characters.
“I actually have another story for Cohle and Hart that, who knows, maybe we’ll do it one day,” Pizzolatto said “It’s character-based again…. But it’s not something I’ve written or anything. It’s just [that] I had that in my head, and we’ve talked about getting back together and doing it. I think the guys are open to it. It’s just a question of whether that would ever happen or not.”
Given Harrelson’s recent comments, it appears perhaps the guys are not as open to it as Pizzolatto though.
