News on season 3 of HBO’s intermittently airing crime drama True Detective has been on a steady drip since the next installment was announced, and now it looks as though Scoot McNairy has been tapped for a key role. The new season comes after the network placed the series on the back burner following a star-studded but disappointing second season that failed to live up to the immense expectations set by the Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson-led first go-round.
But the series is set to make a comeback and creator Nic Pizzolatto has even brought in some help in the form of Deadwood creator David Milch and Green Room director Jeremy Saulnier. In addition, the new season has lined up an impressive cast that includes Mahershala Ali in the lead role, while Carmen Ejogo, Stephen Dorf, and now McNairy are set to join him in what is being described as a story that revolves around a “macabre” crime in the Ozarkes that unfolds over the course of many years.
Related: True Detective Season 3 Adds Stephen Dorff to the Cast
As reported by Deadline, McNairy is set to play a man named Tom, a father who "suffers a loss" in the crimes that are central to the season’s main story. Whatever “loss” Tom suffers connects him to Ali’s Detective Wayne Hays and Dorf’s Roland West over the course of 10 some-odd years.
McNairy is coming off a busy 2017 in terms of his work in television and film. In addition to his role as Gordon Clark in the terrific final season of AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire, McNairy also appeared as Sheriff Bill McNue in Scott Frank’s visually stunning Western Godless for Netflix. He also had a small but memorable role in season 3 of Fargo, as the dimwitted hitman Maurice LeFay. That’s in addition to his film roles, like in Sleepless opposite Jamie Foxx, Aftermath with Arnold Schwarzengger, and the Netflix original film War Machine, starring Brad Pitt.
All in all, it seems like McNairy is keeping busy with some strong supporting roles in fairly high-profile gigs. Though Halt and Catch Fire doesn’t really fall under that particular description, McNairy’s role was essential, especially with regard to the series reaching the emotionally gratifying conclusion that it did. The idea of the actor playing a grieving father and lending a series like True Detective the kind of pathos it needs seems like a foregone conclusion. Considering the work he turned in recently opposite the likes of Brad Pitt, Ewan McGregor, Kerry Bishé, and Lee Pace, it will be interesting to see him on screen with the likes of Ali and Dorf.
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True Detective season 3 premieres in 2019 on HBO.
Source: Deadline