Since the very nascence of HBO’s True Detective, the eclectic series has stirred the most excitement with its starring cast. Across seasons one and two, True Detective benefited from the familiar talents of reliable power-hitters like Woody Harrelson and Colin Farrell, all the while tampering in the reinvention of one-note stars like Matthew McConaughey (which it pulled off to great success) and Vince Vaughn (which… less so). When Mahershala Ali was cast as the lead of season three, it was a sign that True Detective might be kicking off a different M.O. And now that Ali has found his costar in none other than Stephen Dorff (via Entertainment Weekly), we can rest assured that this new batch of episodes will feel unlike anything the series has given us thus far.
Crossing Jordan and Treme vet Ali has been at the top of everyone’s watch lists since his magnificent turns in last year’s Best Picture winner Moonlight and Marvel series Luke Cage, affording him a relevance and notability distinct from that of his True Detective company. Dorff is a different story, however.
Though not exactly a household name, Dorff has had his foot in every of Hollywood’s most pronounced corners: superheroics (Blade), mainstream comedy (Zoolander), the indie scene (Somewhere), camp (Cecil B. Demented), and even horror, per this year’s Leatherface reboot. A dutiful performer on all fronts, Dorff comes to True Detective, a series committed to turning out interesting performances, with a promise of nothing less. Not quite this season’s Harrelson or Farrell, nor its McConaughey or Vaughn, Dorff is perhaps the perfect new asset to True Detective: someone we’ve seen be great, but someone whose greatness we know we haven’t seen the whole of yet.
Image: New Line Cinema
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