This is an interview from the Banff World Media Festival in which Community showrunner Dan Harmon pokes and prods at the brain of True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto for a solid hour. It’s incredibly interesting for a number of reasons. Highlights include:
- A discussion at the beginning about Pizzolatto’s pre-TV career in academia and as a novel writer, and how he eventually broke into entertainment.
- The True Detective stuff, which starts around the 20 minute mark and covers the casting, writing, production in southern Louisiana, and everything else.
- When Pizzolatto was writing the series, he says the walls of his apartment were covered with Post-It Notes filled with scribbles about the characters and their various courses of action. How very Rust Cohle of him.
- A brief digression to shoot down all those casting rumors, followed by Harmon jokingly suggesting Key & Peele and Pizzolatto laughing and saying “Wouldn’t that be great?” YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST: PIZZOLATTO WANTS KEY AND PEELE FOR TRUE DETECTIVE SEASON 2. MUST CREDIT UPROXX.
- Pizzolatto describes the show as “two cops riding around in a car and they don’t quite get along.” Well, yeah, I guess.
But the most interesting part of the interview is that Harmon and Pizzolatto couldn’t appear to be more different if they tried: Harmon is unshaven and wearing a Wolverine t-shirt, Pizzolatto is well-groomed and in what Harmon describes as “a Knight Rider jacket”; Harmon is goofy and fidgety, Pizzolatto is intense and calm. And so on. It’s fascinating to watch two polar opposite creative minds discuss their craft. If you have an hour and are interested in that kind of stuff, I highly recommend it.
