If there’s something the Internet loves it’s wishful thinking. And there’s a ton of wishful thinking going around the second season of “True Detective.” There’s been dumb, totally false and wrong rumors that Brad Pitt was going to co-star (ha, as if), and lately, there’s been word that Jessica Chastain got an offer to star in the second season of writer Nic Pizzolatto’s show (by now you’ve hopefully come to terms that Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey are not coming back either). And maybe Chastain did get an offer, but to prove the point why you should always temper that excitement, every major star always gets an offer for everything. Especially if they’re hot at the moment. So you know Tom Hardy, Michael Fassbender and Jessica Chastain get offered every part right now. Hell, Fassbender was offered the lead in Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah” and Jim Jarmusch’s “Only Lovers Left Alive,” both of which he had to turn down because of scheduling conflicts. He wants to work with those people, but not everything fits, so maybe next time.
Offers mean very little. And so yes, while HBO has already confirmed that Jessica Chastain would not be in the second season of “True Detective,” in case you think they’re lying—which of course is always the conspiracy theory notion behind all casting these days for some reason—Chastain has herself said, thanks, but no thanks.
“It’s such an awkward thing,” Chastain told Vulture in Cannes today. “That news broke yesterday and it went crazy on the internet. There was so much of an explosion. Also it’s an awkward thing because when all that attention happens, it takes away from whoever plays the role. I love Woody Harrelson, and I’m gonna watch the second season just like I watched every episode of the first. But I won’t be on it.”
Case closed, Internet. Sorry, would it be cool? Yes. Is Chastain already booked up until 2017 with movie roles? Pretty much. A TV show was never going to work into her schedule (plus if you’re white hot in movies, the last place you want to go is the small screen, frankly). Meanwhile, Chastain did talk (and confirm) that she’ll be playing Marilyn Monroe for Andrew Dominik in the movie long-gestating project “Blonde.”
“Listen, with that project, I love Andrew Dominik. I think he’s an incredible filmmaker and artist,” she said. “He has his own different, unique voice. I wasn’t interested in, and I’m not interested in, making a Marilyn Monroe biopic, because I feel like we’ve had so many of those and so many people are fantastic and it’s not a competition, you know what I mean? It was not exciting to me. So I read Joyce Carol Oates’ book, ‘Blonde,’ and what surprised me is that it’s not a biography. It’s actually a work of fiction. And I found it to be a great feminist novel, because it takes the archetype of the blonde, as represented by Marilyn Monroe, and we see what society does [with] her and what the film industry in particular does with her, and how she’s devoured up. And I think in a day and age where we’re fighting to have female voices in cinema and perspectives of women [in] a film industry dominated by male voices, it’s a good story to tell.”
That one is a ways off, but we’ll see Chastain later this year in Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” and J.C. Chandor’s ‘80s-set crime drama “A Most Violent Year.”
