This story contains plot points from the season 4 finale ofTrue Detective: Night Country.
DEADLINE So did Navarro become a ghost in the finale after she walked out on the ice?
I very carefully crafted this as an ink block test for you to discover yourself as an audience member.
Issa López, with Kali Reis & Jodie FosterMAX
And in doing it, she receives a piece of herself.
So that call that she was afraid of is solved.
you might read it both ways and its up to you to interpret which one fulfills your heart.
Im assuming that was the point, to kind of throw us off?
LOPEZAgain, its both.
A horrible deed in the real world happened.
Annie K. was killed.
Theres no right reason for killing a woman anywhere.
But on top of that, shes killed for horrible reasons.
That eventually brings consequences to these men.
They put the men out in the arctic.
So its perfectly real.
Thats a rational explanation.
But theres another explanation that these men walk into the ice.
Their clothes are there for them to come back to so they can take a stab at survive.
They never come back for the clothes.
When they were taking the lives of women, because of where they were digging?
Thats another vision of it.
And once again, its your mission to decide which version you go with.
DEADLINE How did you come up with the story?
LOPEZI was briefly married to a scientist and I love science.
I was an archeologist and I have studied anthropology.
Thats the beauty of TV.
You really have the space to explore your obsessions.
Was that a goal?
LOPEZTrue Detective is about the locations.
The place is a character as much as the characters themselves.
Each of those locations were incredibly distinctive and bring different elements.
So I thought of Alaska, which is completely different from those three and where the nights last forever.
I was not familiar with them.
So I learned as much as I could on my own.
It became the story that we were telling.
LOPEZOh, every night.
What am I doing here?
Nobody told me that I had to do that.
No, I had to pick the harshest place on earth!
DEADLINE How was it working with Jodie and Kali?
So much anger in every episode with those women!
Did Did they require much direction?
LOPEZI think whats interesting about working with women is that its pretty damn easy to access [motivation].
I mean, we are so happy to be in on those sets.
But weve dealt with shit in our lives, all of us.
And its easy to access and its fun to use it to create something positive.
So its not a show about angry women, but it is also a show about angry women.
But it is also about the anger that we feel and we carry.
Kali and Jodie couldnt be more different and the two of them couldnt be more different than myself.
But you do find theres a communion of experiences and the technique they use with each other is different.
With Jodie, everything comes from the mind.
Kali and I come more from the world of emotions.
Then I would let them go and they would achieve the same tone beautifully.
It was gorgeous to watch.
DEADLINE I have to ask about Peter Prior [Finn Bennett].
He felt like the moral center of this story.
I felt so sorry for him.
I mean, yes, hes absolutely the moral compass.
Hes the uncorrupted one at the beginning of the story.
But the truth is, it is a cop story.
And imparting justice, if thats the function of the police, cannot be black and white.
Weve seen it over and over again.
Hes a baby cop and hes trying to become a full-fledged one.
And hes doing it by asking the right questions and getting the training as a detective.
Hes not a full fledged cop until he has baptism by blood and its his own blood.
Its a very primal image, but its behind so many modern conflicts.
I took it a little literal in this case.
Hes not that person.
Everything he did is going to be exposed.
He knows he lost his child.
So he raises the gun.
And if you look carefully at the frame, Hank doesnt have his finger on the trigger.
DEADLINE Did you feel like you had enough episodes to tell your story?
Did you want more?
It was the opposite.
HBO kept saying like, just do eight, just.
And I was like, no, six.
I feel that overstaying your welcome is a mistake.
You have to quit while youre winning.
Every story uses the space it needs.
Six was the goal, and six was where we ended it.
