True Detective Season 5: Antonio Banderas and Nicolas Cage are the new detective duo
HBO confirmed both leads in a video. The season is set in Jamaica Bay, New York, brings back Issa López as showrunner and starts filming in 2027.
True Detective Season 5 has its pairing: Antonio Banderas and Nicolas Cage. HBO confirmed both leads on Friday, October 16, with a video on the show's official social accounts. Banderas will play Rai García and Cage will play Henry Logan. The season is set in Jamaica Bay, New York, and production is scheduled to begin in 2027.
Cage's casting is not a total surprise: he confirmed it himself at New York Comic Con last week, more than a year after reports first said he was in talks. Today's news is Banderas, the Spanish star of Pain and Glory, the role that earned him an Oscar nomination.
What we know so far
- Showrunner: Mexican filmmaker Issa López, who ran, wrote and directed Season 4, Night Country, returns as writer, director and executive producer.
- Executive producers: alongside López, Cage and Banderas, the list keeps Season 1 names such as Woody Harrelson, Matthew McConaughey, series creator Nic Pizzolatto and Cary Joji Fukunaga.
- Story: no details about the case yet. López has told the New York Post there will be "important connections" to what happened in Alaska, but that it is a new story with new characters.
- Premiere: no date. With filming not starting until 2027, the new season is unlikely to arrive before late that year.
Why the casting matters
True Detective is an anthology: each season changes city, case and cast, and the investigating duo is the heart of it. Past pairings include Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson (Louisiana), Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams and Vince Vaughn (California), Mahershala Ali and Stephen Dorff (the Ozarks) and Jodie Foster and Kali Reis (Alaska). Per HBO, Season 4 was the most-watched installment to date, with 12.7 million cross-platform viewers. Overall, the show has 41 Emmy nominations and six wins.
For Cage, it will be only his second leading TV role, after Spider-Noir. In the US, all four previous seasons stream on HBO Max, which is expected to carry the new one once it has a date.
