Oscar winning actor Mahershala Ali will headline the third season of the much-anticipated HBO series "True Detective."
Along with Ali is showrunner and creator Nic Pizzolatto who will write the scripts as well as helm this season. Jeremy Saulnier, who directed "Green Room," will also steward some episodes.
Ali is best known for playing Remy Denton in "House of Cards" and Anthony King in "Treme." However, it was his outstanding performance as Juan in "Moonlight" that earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar award.
The next story of the anthology series will take place in the Ozark Mountains and will involve a grisly crime. Ali will play the lead character Wayne Hays, a Northwest Arkansas police detective who is tasked to investigate the violent murder which will span three decades. The mystery will cast a shadow over three separate time periods which Hays will navigate throughout the series.
"I'm tremendously thrilled to be working with artists at the level of Mahershala and Jeremy. I hope the material can do justice to their talents, and we're all very excited to tell this story," said Pizzolatto in an interview with Deadline.
The showrunner will write all the episodes for season 3 except for the fourth one which he will co-write with David Milch, who is known for his work on "Deadwood."
In a recent report, Pizzolatto dropped the HBO project "Perry Mason" which he was set to write in order to focus on "True Detective." The "Perry Mason" reboot would have headlined Robert Downey Jr. Now with Pizzolatto out of the picture, HBO will be looking for new writers.
It is seemingly understandable why Pizzolatto would want to focus his energy on the new season of "True Detective" because the prior one got mixed reviews from critics. It remains to be seen if the showrunner can redeem himself with season 3.
"True Detective" season 3 has no release date set but expect more reports as the situation unfolds.
