Issa López: It was a discovery because I had never done a murder mystery before. But I’m a fan of them, I grew up obsessed with them. Somewhere I read that you start with an answer, and then you work backwards. I tried that and it didn’t work at all. So I tried the other way around—with the initial mystery, which is the disappearance of these men, and then the revelation that they did something so terrible that it comes to haunt them, and then the women came to me. So I had those three things. Then I got a call from HBO and they were wondering if anyone would revive True Detective. 

Did you have a relationship with HBO? Or was this out of the blue?

López: It was out of the blue, and it was one of those happy calls. I love their stuff. I really think they created prestige TV. They finally pushed TV to the level of the visual arts, to the level of cinema. I was not sad, let’s put it that way. 

Jodie, what about you? When did you come to this project, and what was the tipping point that made you want to do your first show since you were a kid? 

Jodie Foster: It was pretty easy, because I had read the first episode that Issa had written, and you know when you read something that works—there was so much truth, and so much depth there—I knew right away this was something I was interested in. And then I met Issa, and that pretty much sealed the deal.

We had an incredible lunch together. And right before I was about to leave, I said, You know, I don’t really like the character that I’m playing. [Laughter.] But we worked it out, and in the end it was just amazing to see her pivot a little bit, and to create a new character who supported the central character, which is Kali’s character. 

I read that you described your character, Danvers,  as “Alaska Karen.” [Laughter.] But I don’t actually agree! She’s much more nuanced and complex, and sort of sad. 

Foster: She’s actually worse than that! But I do think there was an interesting kind of humor between Navarro and Danvers, because Danvers thinks she’s so funny. And Navarro has been having to listen to this for however many years, and they’ve built up this sort of tolerance. They’re the only two people who can tolerate each other. 

Kali, give me your origin story for this. It must have been an interesting call, “Would you like to star opposite Jodie Foster?” 

Kali Reis: The initial call with Issa was kind of, Well, who are you? Because I come from a different career and had very little work before this. I had no idea it was for True Detective. I got a call that this very talented director has a very good project and wants to get to know you and talk to you. We had a really good conversation, and I immediately fell in love with her work. And then I found out it was for True Detective, and I was like Wow, great, I’m a huge fan.

I did my audition, and I was like I really want this. Then I let it go. Then in the middle of waiting for the call I found out Jodie was going to be Danvers. And I was like Holy crap, and then I got the call. Issa said it was going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but also the most rewarding. I was really excited that this opportunity kind of fell into my hands. 

Issa, what about her self-tape was so compelling?

López: I originally wrote her character as a Mexican immigrant, but the more I learned about these small towns in Northwest Alaska, the more I understood that 70 percent of the population is Inuit, and a central part of the mystery is horrors that happened to an Inuit woman, it would have been a disservice to that community that I was writing a love letter to. So I left a tiny bit of Latina in Navarro, but I decided I needed an indigenous star. My wonderful casting director sent me a photo, and the photo alone, and I said that’s Navarro. 

So M.J., it’s very different to produce a mystery show than it is to produce a True Detective mystery show. Did it have to have certain things, certain beats, certain mythologies?

Mari-Jo Winkler: Well, I was introduced to Issa through HBO. Big fan. And when HBO approached me they said we’re making a female-forward version of True Detective. For women to be at the helm was super important, and to get all the details right. The adventure of figuring out Alaska was huge. And making a detective show that had an undercurrent of social justice—it was jam packed, so there were a lot of responsibilities. 

It was a 100 percent green production. I’m not familiar with how that works.

Winkler: I’ve been greening film sets since 2003, and I actually wrote some of the protocols for the industry for sustainability. HBO has a program called HBO Green and they were incredibly supportive. So you start by thinking about the whole process, from script through distribution, and how you’re going to put it through a sustainability lens. And it’s a lot of communication with crew members. We had a sustainability supervisor, we implemented clean energy tech. We had the benefit of being in Iceland, where there’s 100 percent clean energy, so we were not burning fossil fuels, which was incredible.

Issa, you’ve said that True Detective is male and sweaty—and Night Country is cold and dark and female. Explain what you mean by that.

López: The male and sweaty part? No. [Laughter.] But you watch this beautiful series, that first season, and you want to see the reverse. It does what it does so beautifully. It was such an exploration of the good parts and the terrible parts and everything in between that happens with two men. All those questions were amazing, trying to bring justice to a world that doesn’t want justice. It made me hungry to create new characters and moments and new ways to see the heroes. 

You did an interview with Guillermo del Toro recently, and you talked about the tradition in Mexican filmmaking of incorporating horror with personal demons, and it seems like that is what’s playing out in this show. Did you feel going into it—that this was a horror story you were going to tell from the internal and external perspective? 

López: One of the first things I told HBO, when they asked what I wanted to do with True Detective, was: Alaska. Women. Horror. Because that first season of True Detective had that whiff of the supernatural, and it constantly moved between, maybe this is a bunch of crazy people, or maybe there is a darker universe operating behind the scenes, and it’s for us to decide. And I missed that in the second and third season, so I wanted to bring it back with a vengeance.

Explain the process of incorporating that mythology of the first story, but not going too far, but just enough so that the fans will recognize it. Was there a lot of debate about the callbacks to include? 

López: Like most everything in storytelling, if you create an intention, you’re going to fail. So you just stay open. And when the story asked for something that echoed that first season, I would let it happen. I’ll give an example. There was a symbol where our world was close to the netherworld in Night Country. We could have had a different symbol, but we’re sharing a universe, so whenever the story asked for an element that could come from the first season, I did it. It was not just breadcrumbing for the fans. 

Jodie, obviously you’re an accomplished filmmaker. Is it hard for you to let go a little? Are you an in-your-face collaborator? What is your process like when you’re not directing? 

Foster: It depends, really. What was so great about this was that the characters were amazing, the script was amazing, and it was really about all of us participating and deepening what we already had, and trying to have answers for things. I get annoying in rehearsal, being like, but why is she wearing blue? Why is she wearing that? So I do ask the why questions, and then we all have to figure out what the answers are. But I have been on movies where I felt like I wanted to turn it in a different direction, and that’s always a huge mistake, because it’s the director’s medium, and I’m there to serve the director. And to me, that’s the best part of what I do now.

Kali, did you have a moment during the shooting where you looked around and were like, Okay, this is the big time?

Reis: I mean the whole process has been big. When I went to Iceland flying first class, I was like, Okay, I made it now! But just seeing how many moving parts there were, how much care was put into every single detail. The first day there’s a lot of pressure. Some people were probably like, Who is this pierced-up, tattooed boxer person trying to be an actor? But from the call to the plane to the dope apartment I had in Iceland, it was all like I can’t mess this up! I didn’t want it to end. 

Whose choice was it to use the Billie Eilish song?

López: It was mine. I was listening to that on repeat during the pandemic. And I wrote a bunch of the first passes of the episodes listening to Billie Eilish in general. But then I listened to the song after making the show, and I think I basically turned the song into a series. So it was just a natural choice. 

Shooting in Iceland… how cold did it get?

Winkler: We shot 56 nights, and 43 consecutive nights in 20 to 25 degrees. Had we done it in Alaska it would have been minus 20. But we had a crew that was just built to be outside, and they were great problem solvers. There were nights where you would get out of the car to go to work, and there was one night in particular where I got to Issa’s car, and she’s like, We’re not going to be able to shoot, how are we going to do this? And I was like listen, Thor, who was our supervising location manager, would have called us if we can’t shoot. We were screaming at each other because it was so loud from the wind. Then our D.P. gets out of the car and she’s like, We’re not going to be able to shoot! And Thor says, Well, we have to try. So he drives a van onto the ice to block the wind to shoot the dialogue. So there was always a solution. The whole thing was bonkers, but amazing. Those were the nights where I felt really alive.