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2 months ago
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Issa López is ready to pour herself a glass of bubbly to celebrate the 19 Emmy nominations for True Detective: Night Country — and then dive headfirst back into the next season of the HBO anthology.
“A dear friend of mine came today at 8 a.m. with a bottle of champagne, and it’s still waiting in the fridge. We’re going to crack it open the moment that I’m done with calls,” she told Deadline. “I’m a happy person. I’ve had a beautiful life. This is one of the best mornings in my life.”
True Detective: Night Country quickly became the most successful iteration of the franchise after it debuted in January. Within about a month, López was attached to a fifth season, which she now says is a “fun, dark, f*cked up story” that she’s itching to start making. She is currently in the writing process.
“I am so stoked for the new season,” she said, adding that Wednesday morning’s nominations reinvigorated both her and the HBO team to make the next season “even better.”
True Detective: Night Country‘s nominations also represent some huge milestones for its stars. Jodie Foster secured her first acting Emmy nomination, and Kali Reis became the first Indigenous woman to be nominated for Supporting Actress in a Limited Series.
When reflecting on the eight-episode series, López said she is most proud of the representation she put forth.
“It is a series that it turned out to be…very entertaining, but it also became meaningful, because we are getting a glimpse into a life that we can’t imagine. It is America, but it doesn’t feel like America, and it doesn’t look like America. It doesn’t sound like America, but it is America. We tend to forget that there’s so many different Americas, in a way,” she explained. “To put it out into the world and make it into something that people want to come back and watch week after week, and they’re fascinated with it is the most extraordinary achievement, and it was a challenge. You don’t know if it’s going to work. You do things because you want to see them in TV. You make the series that you want to see as an audience, because for the love of the storytelling, and then you do it, and turns out that people feel the same way you do. That’s important.”
López also thinks it “makes no sense” that this is the first year that an Indigenous woman would be nominated for, well, any category, and it’s “high time that it happen.”
With Night Country, she’s especially glad to have “found a way to do it organically — that is, the story and the story setting that asks for these characters to be placed on the screen and taking the story in their hands — getting the recognition for that and getting the ratings and just proving that making decisions of putting these faces and these voices and these stories on TV pays off.”
Writing the show that got Foster her first TV acting nod is just the icing on the cake for López, who grew up idolizing the actress.
“When I was on set with her, I thought immediately, the first week, this woman should get an Emmy nomination. If she doesn’t, I don’t understand what I’m doing anymore. The more we worked together, the clearer that became,” she said. “Seeing it come to fruition, it’s huge. I believe that Jodie is the most extraordinary actor of her generation.”
