Jodie Foster on Breaking the ‘True Detective’ Emmys Losing Streak: ‘You Understand How Great It Is to Serve the Whole Story’

Few losing streaks were more puzzling than the Television Academy’s longtime refusal to give an acting Emmy to a “True Detective” cast member. From Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson to Rachel McAdams and Mahershala Ali, many of the most acclaimed actors of their generation have spent a season on the HBO anthology series. But it took four seasons and the presence of Jodie Foster — who won Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series for her role in “True Detective: Night Country” — to finally break the streak

Addressing members of the press backstage after winning her Emmy, Foster downplayed the importance of being the first “True Detective” cast member to win the coveted award. Instead, she spoke about the beauty of working with an ensemble and serving a story that’s larger than herself.

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“The idea of being with a team is just an extraordinary feeling,” Foster said when asked about the significance of ending the streak. “I wish that I had known that when I was in my selfish 20s and all I thought about was myself. It was fun, thinking about yourself all the time, but eventually you get dissatisfied when you’re in your 60s. Then bingo, eureka, you realize how great it is to serve other actors and the full story. So it feels so good. We did get 19 nominations, and we are this crazy family that lived through the winter in the dark in the arctic.”

The acting Emmy that had long eluded the show was well-deserved, as many critics praised Foster for her three-dimensional take on a character that had little in common with the kinds of TV cops viewers were used to seeing.

“Foster gives Danvers an exuberance rarely seen in aging, stuck-in-their-ways TV cops — especially ones widely despised by the local townsfolk, who are either mad she stopped fucking them (the husbands) or mad she did in the first place (the wives),” IndieWire’s Ben Travers wrote in his review of the series. “Yes, Danvers is the Wilt Chamberlain of Alaskan cops — a running joke that’s never not funny, in part because when haters call her a slut, she’s always framed like a badass — but her BDE (Big Danvers Energy) is unconquerable, in and out of the bedroom. She gets mad pretty often, sure (usually at her mildly rebellious step-daughter or inept fellow officers), but a pissed-off Foster is still magnetic, and “True Detective” allows the Oscar winner ample room to flex her charisma, just like it did for McConaughey, Mahershala Ali, and, to a lesser extent, Rachel McAdams.”

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