McConaughey and Harrelson join forces for new show
Heads were tilted in confusion when American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy announced that his cast would be upended following the debut season of the horror anthology series, but when Murphy explained “there are a lot of actors who have their own careers and don’t want to make a five-year commitment; this gives people who haven’t done TV before an opportunity”, it made more sense.
Now, possibly spurred by the success of AHS, film stars Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson (who co-starred in ED TV and something called Surfer Dude) may be coming to TV with True Detective, a potential cable series from director Cary Fukunaga (Jane Eyre) and writer Nik Pizzolatto (The Killing). According to Deadline.com, the series would focus on “two detectives, Rust Cohle (McConaughey) and Martin Hart (Harrelson), whose lives collide and entwine during a seventeen-year hunt for a serial killer in Louisiana. The investigation of a bizarre murder in 1995 is framed and interlaced with testimony from the detectives in 2012, when the case has been reopened.”
The show’s first season would only last 8 episodes and it would reportedly be the only one for McConaughey and Harrelson, as subsequent seasons would follow a different mystery and a different cast of characters.
This would mark a return to TV for Harrelson, who got his start on Cheers and also did a lengthy guest spot on Will & Grace (who didn’t?). McConaughey also got his start on TV, playing the victim of a pantsless murderer in a re-enactment on Unsolved Mysteries, the 80s and 90s true-crime series that may or may not have been hosted by a zombie. McConaughey also recently appeared, for the second time, on Eastbound & Down as a scout – he can next be seen, really seen, in the Steven Soderbergh male-stripper comedy Magic Mike.
Harrelson’s political drama Game Change recently debuted on HBO and he is co-starring in The Hunger Games, though you probably knew that since it’s presently kicking ass and taking names at the box office.
Fun fact: McConaughey was shirtless while wearing short shorts on Unsolved Mysteries and he likely will be again in Magic Mike, see, everything is circular.
