“I would follow her to the ends of the Earth, because she has that confidence in herself, but also is flexible. It’s a combination of both,” the “Night Country” star says of our IndieWire Honors Auteur Award winner.

Jodie Foster, Issa Lopez, and Kali Reis pose during the blue carpet for the series ‘True Detective: Night Country’ at Cineteca Nacional on January 11, 2024 in Mexico City, Mexico
Getty Images

It starts at the beginning, which is, you get a great piece of material. In Issa’s case, she had the great instinct to say, “I’ve always wanted to do some kind of noir, an Arctic noir.” The second that she said that and started doing the research into the place, it revealed itself to her. And then she said, “This is America, but it’s the Arctic.” Suddenly, you have all of those generations of embedded, deep, beautiful trauma that comes with the extraordinary folktales and myths and character of that landscape and those people. The second that she spoke to that, it was like a whole world of truth and beauty and humor and complexity opened up to her.

You have to be a talented, inspired person who opens themselves up to that. It’s all contagious, because every single person who climbs aboard is like, “There’s something about this that I can’t deny.” As each person came aboard, each one of them just started doing the best work of their lives. The whole thing was kind of magical, to tell you the truth. That happens when you have a piece of material that’s grounded in something that really strikes the core of your humanness. I think the only other time that I’ve had this experience was on “The Silence of the Lambs.”

It starts with Issa’s extraordinary talent, and also her instincts and how open she is. She is somebody who has been gifted a lot of a seemingly contradictory talents. She’s incredibly brilliant and intelligent, but also really funny and silly. She’s so strong and so clear about her vision, and has no problem saying, “No, I totally disagree. This is the way we’re going to do it.” Yet, she’s completely flexible and enjoys the process of walking in and going like, “Oh, what new thing are we going to bring to the table?” I’d almost say she’s like an actor, but I don’t know that she’s like an actor, because I think she has a bigger worldview than an actor. But she could have been an actor if she wanted to.

 
Issa Lopez directingGetty

I read the script first, because I never want to take a meeting without reading the script. I don’t want to be sitting in front of somebody and having them pour out their story that they love, and then I read the script and I’m like, “Eh.” I read the script and was so intrigued, I felt so moved by that first episode. We had this wonderful conversation and she talked to me about the piece, but we talked about everything under the sun, too, and I was like, “Oh, my gosh, she’s amazing. What a vision. Extraordinary person.”

But I kind of laid the bomb at the end, which is, “Look, I just don’t think I’m right for this part. There’s a lot about it that I’ve played before when I was younger and that now I’ve outgrown. I’ve played a lot of characters who have lost their children, and I don’t know that I want to play that again. I feel like I’ve done it a bunch of times and now I’m older and why am I playing it again? And, not only that, I’m too old to play a character that’s just recently lost their child. How about we take that part out?”

And then I went off and did another movie and was like, “Well, that’s probably the end of that.” But Issa called me on the phone, and she said, “Look, that’s not going to happen. That part of your speech to me is not going to happen. I understand if you feel completely wed to that and it’s a place that you don’t want to go, and then we’ll happily say goodbye, but these are the reasons why I feel like it’s important.” Then I went, “OK, but I can’t play her as having recently lost the child. That would be ridiculous, I’m 60 years old.” We were able to come to a compromise on that one!

 
‘True Detective: Night Country’Courtesy of Michele K. Short / HBO
I would follow her to the ends of the Earth, because she has that confidence in herself, but also is flexible. It’s a combination of both. As performers and as actors, we can learn to give up these embedded ideas that we might have about something because we’re just stubborn or because we can’t grow. Then we have to learn how to hold onto things that are true to the character. A lot of writers, especially writer/directors, that’s a tough one for them, because they spend a lot of their life by themselves in a hotel room, and they make something perfect and then they hand it out and they’re like, “Oh, do it just like this.” But movies and TV shows aren’t made in a hotel room, they’re made in collaboration with 170 people, each person bringing their stuff and their history and their experiences to the table, and it shifts and changes every second.

That’s what you have to love about making films, you have to love how organic they are and how you’re doing it together. It’s like this act of love that you pull together. But there has to be a conductor on the train, there has to be a parent who says, “I love you and everything you do and you’re wonderful, just go, go, go,” but  who also says, “Except I need you to get on the train by 8:32, and that way we will be on time.” You need both, and that’s what Issa is.

 

We all really care about each other. Some of that happened while we were shooting, of course, because you like the people you work with, but I’m always keen on keeping some distance while I’m shooting because, honestly, when you work 14 hours with a bunch of people, at the end of the day, I just want to come home and I want to watch football and I want to read.
‘True Detective: Night Country’Courtesy of HBO
My relationship with Issa, although it was really great while we were shooting, was also very differential to [her], because she’s the director and she knows she needs to be up on the hierarchy. We really became close after the shoot, and I was able to say like, “Oh, you know that day when this and this happened? Actually, this is what really happened.” Especially since I know it’s an anthology and I’m not going to be in the next one, we were really able to become friends in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever become friends with a director before.

She’s somebody who I would call if I cut my finger off with a paring knife and I need somebody to take me to the hospital. I would call her, and she would call me. Just make sure you say how much I love her.