Only one director steers eight-episode series

NEW YORK—Several things set “True Detective” apart.

For starters, this new HBO drama series, which premieres Jan. 19 in Asia (9 p.m. in Manila), stars Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, a pair of actors known not for TV but for features. And they tackle, in effect, not one but two roles apiece: Former Louisiana State Police detectives interrogated in 2012 about a homicide case are seen working, in flashback, in 1995.

The series was written in its entirety by creator Nic Pizzolatto, a novelist whose only prior TV credit was a brief turn on AMC’s “The Killing.”

One other distinguishing factor: The entire eight-episode season was stewarded by just one director.

Such a solo act is virtually unprecedented for a TV drama series. But it made sense for “True Detective,” says Cary Joji Fukunaga, who landed the job.

“When you have one person guiding the vision all the way through and gaining the trust of the actors, the chain isn’t broken,” he says. “It all just flows.”

While fans of shows like “Breaking Bad,” “The Sopranos,” “Downton Abbey” and “Game of Thrones” might argue this point, there’s a certain logic to one person conceiving, and conveying, the Big Picture.

On the other hand, there are excellent reasons for sharing the wealth. “It’s an incredible amount of work for just one team,” says Fukunaga, who toiled all the way with his cinematographer, first assistant director and other key associates.

Fukunaga, 36, made the 2011 film “Jane Eyre,” and wrote as well as directed “Sin Nombre,” which won the 2009 directing prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

Not bad for someone who calls filmmaking his “backup plan” and whose dream, really, was to be a pro snowboarder.

“Filming tests a lot of the same skills,” he reasons. “You scare yourself every day. Then, once you’re flying off a cliff, it’s over: You’ve just got to land.”

He faced the cliff’s edge of “True Detective” in August 2012 as he geared up for what would be 101 breakneck days of shooting. He hasn’t landed yet.

“We’ve been in post-production since July, and I have four more weeks before I’m done,” he reports. “I’ve been running on fumes for over a year.”

Even so, he looks jazzed during an interview at a Japanese restaurant in Greenwich Village, on a lunch break from a nearby dubbing session.

At least, the recording studio is out of the elements. Much of the series was shot in remote forests, fields and flood plains of Southern Louisiana.

The tale stems from a ritualistic murder of a woman found nude, mutilated and crowned with deer antlers in the middle of nowhere in 1995. This ghoulish crime, handiwork of a serial killer, is solved by detectives Rust Cohle (McConaughey) and Martin Hart (Harrelson).

Or was it? Pressed by investigators in 2012, the two former partners are forced to relive the case, as well as their stormy relationship, amid growing doubt that the right man was charged.

Says Fukunaga, “To me, what really mattered was these two guys and their journey. The murder case is a foil to get to know them.” The real drama, he says, issues from the conflict both these men have “reconciling who they should be with who they are really are.”

In their respective dual roles, McConaughey and Harrelson are galvanizing. “But they have very different approaches to acting,” says Fukunaga, explaining that McConaughey takes a cerebral, analytical approach—“he’s method. Woody is completely sensory and moment-to-moment.”

“This is a multilayered police procedural whose truest investigation is into the nature of its two protagonists,” says Pizzolatto from his home in Ojai, California. “Its best moments come from those men just speaking straight into the camera, or riding in a car together, or when one of them comes to eat dinner at the other’s house.” AP

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Turkish Romeo & Juliet

The Turkish drama “Majority” has a different take on “Romeo and Juliet”: Merktan, a young man from Istanbul, falls for Gul, a Kurdish girl from eastern Turkey.  “Majority” airs tonight at 9 on CinemaWorld.

‘Superhumans’ in Filipino

GMA News TV brings back the first season of “Stan Lee’s Superhumans” on free TV. Hosted by Stan Lee, founder of Marvel Comics, and Daniel Browning-Smith, dubbed the world’s most flexible man, the series goes in search of people with real-life super-powers.

For its pilot episode, Daniel presents India’s Rajmohan Nair, who claims to be immune to electrocution; and the US’ Scott Flansburg, who can calculate complex arithmetic faster than anyone on the planet.

Dubbed in Filipino, “Superhumans” airs Sundays, 4:45 p.m.