Jodie Foster wanted her True Detective: Night Country character to be ‘as awful as possible,’ Kali Reis recalls those ‘brutal’ below-zero night shoots

Interview by Kristen Baldwin
Illustration by Zoë van Dijk

Jodie Foster and Kali Reis are ready for their next project together.

“We’re doing the whole roommate New York thing,” Reis says, wasting no time answering when Entertainment Weekly presents them with a few options for potential vehicles: an Odd Couple-style sitcom playing New York roommates; a heist drama like Hell or High Water; or a sci-fi thriller like Alien.

Foster agrees. “Especially because Kali is a great comedian. She is so funny,” the two-time Oscar winner and first-time Emmy acting nominee says on the Awardist podcast. “It’s an untapped part of her personality. And people don’t realize that I’m funny because I choose very serious parts.”

“No, you’re hilarious,” Reis says, interrupting to assure her costar. “You’re a good hype man. You put the battery in people’s backs.”

It’s no wonder the audiences and critics — and the Television Academy — loved them so much on True Detective: Night Country, the fourth installment in the series. While the two came to their roles via very different career paths — a former child star turned Hollywood legend and a former professional boxer turned actor — they became one of the year’s most compelling onscreen duos, just two of the show’s 19 Emmy nominations.

Below, the two reunite for a chat about their season of the hit HBO series (this one set in Alaska and created, written, and directed by Issa López). The two reveal their first impressions of their characters — Foster’s police chief Liz Danvers and Reis’ trooper Evangeline Navarro — the big questions they had for López, how Danvers and Navarro changed from the original scripts, what it really felt like filming in subzero temperatures in Iceland, and more.

Check out more from EW’s The Awardist, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year’s best in TV