Jessica Chastain offered lead role in second season of ‘True Detective’

CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 19:  Jessica Chastain attends the "Foxcatcher" premiere during the 67th Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2014 in Cannes, France.  (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Jessica Chastain. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

There was no way HBO was going to let a hit like “True Detective” be a one-season wonder.

According to an exclusive by the Nerdist, Jessica Chastain, the Academy Award-nominated actress who starred in “Zero Dark Thirty,” has been offered the lead role in the second season of “True Detective.”

But she has not accepted — yet.

This signals a different direction for the series, which was heralded for its gripping storytelling, but criticized for what many called its “woman problem.” None of the female characters in the first season of “True Detective” had much depth; instead they were simply depicted as one-dimensional victims of violence. But with Chastain as the lead — and probably the detective — HBO can avoid that rut.

Nerdist states that Nic Pizzolatto, the series creator, wanted a female-driven cast for the second season. Wrote the New Yorker’s Emily Nussbaum:

To state the obvious: while the male detectives of “True Detective” are avenging women and children, and bro-bonding over “crazy p—y,” every live woman they meet is paper-thin. Wives and sluts and daughters — none with any interior life. Instead of an ensemble, “True Detective” has just two characters, the family-man adulterer Marty, who seems like a real and flawed person (and a reasonably interesting a–hole, in Harrelson’s strong performance), and Rust, who is a macho fantasy straight out of Carlos Castaneda. …

Meanwhile, Marty’s wife, Maggie — played by Michelle Monaghan, she is the only prominent female character on the show — is an utter nothing-burger, all fuming prettiness with zero insides. Stand her next to any other betrayed wife on television — Mellie, on “Scandal”; or Alicia, on “The Good Wife”; or Cersei, on “Game of Thrones”; or even Claire, on “House of Cards” — and Maggie’s an outline, too.

“True Detective” is based on Robert W. Chambers’ “The King in Yellow,” a collection of short stories. After the success of the first season, it was was expected that the cable network would find a way to bring the show back, but as an anthology that allowed each season to tell a different story — meaning no more Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.

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