On-set tensions between director Cary Joji Fukunaga and True Detective writer Nic Pizzolatto have been hinted at before, but in a recent chat with The Hollywood Reporter, the filmmaker went into more detail about what happened when the two worked together on the HBO show.
Fukunaga assumed that their working relationship would’ve been one of equals, but over the course of the series, was disheartened to discover that Pizzolatto kept positioning himself as his boss.
Here’s what he said:
“The show was presented to me in the way we pitched it around town — as an independent film made into television. The writer and director are a team. Over the course of the project, Nic kept positioning himself as if he was my boss and I was like, ‘But you’re not my boss. We’re partners. We collaborate.’ By the time they got to postproduction, people like [former programming president] Michael Lombardo were giving Nic more power. It was disheartening because it didn’t feel like the partnership was fair.”
Fukunaga was also forthright about his true feelings for Pizzolatto the artist. He said, “Nic is a really good writer, but I do think he needs to be edited down. It becomes too much about the writing and not enough about the momentum of the story. My struggle with him was to take some of these long dialogue scenes and put some air into them. We differed on tone and taste.”
In a 2014 THR profile, Pizzolatto had denied having had a fall-out with Fukunaga on set:
“Cary and I worked together really smoothly. There was never any contention. Of course, you’re going to have discussions and difference of opinion, but what matters is that everyone is working without ego toward the best realization of what we have.”
Fukunaga won an Emmy for his work on the first season of the anthology series, starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey as Louisiana detectives drawn back into an unsolved mystery from many years ago. Fukunaga didn’t return for the second season, for which the directing duties were divided between different filmmakers. Justin Lin, Janus Metz, Jeremy Podeswa, John Crowley, Miguel Sapochnik, and Dan Attias were brought in to smoothen the production on the show's sophomore season, which wasn’t well-received at all, with criticism, in particular, being directed at Pizzolatto’s dense writing.
For the third season, which arrived after a four-year gap, Pizzolatto was provided additional writing support by Deadwood creator David Milch. Once again favoring the multiple-director strategy over the more auteur-driven approach of Fukunaga’s season, the third installment of True Detective starred Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali and Stephen Dorff.
Fukunaga has leveled up quite considerably since then; he directed another miniseries, Maniac, helmed the first-ever Netflix original film, Beasts of No Nation, and became the first American to direct a James Bond movie. No Time to Die, which will also serve as star Daniel Craig’s final outing as the iconic British spy, is slated to arrive in theaters on October 8.