- Rachel McAdams, True Detective, 2014. The second season could never match the impact and huge viewership – averaging 11.9m – of the first HBO season. They were both written by exec producer Nic Pizzolatti and even if the second show was better, no one would say so as the first had long since entered the pantheon alongside The Sopranos, Oz, The Wire, Mad Men and Breaking Bad. Locale changed from Southern to West Coast noir, still owing everything to Elmore Leonard. Last time, two cop guys; this time, guy and gal. They were considered a flop. Moss (from Mad Men), Malin Akerman, Jaime Alexander, Jessica Biel, Cate Blanchett, Oona Chaplin, Jessica Chastain, Rosario Dawson, Brit Marling, Kelly Reilly, Abigail Spencer were all up for the role of Detective Ani Bezzerides…. opposite Colin Farrell.
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Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog, 2020. Westerns were back… So was down-under director Jane Campion, making her first film for a dozen years three years – after the two seasons of her Top of the Lake series. She wanted the same star, Elisabeth Moss, but she was booked Taika Watiti’s Film Next Goal Wins. Campion called up another of her favourite US actors – to join Benedict Cumberbatch, Jesse Plemons (Kirsten’s partner; they have a son together, Ennis, in 2018) and Kodi Smit-McPhee. In New Zealand’s Dunedin and Otaho A Wastern with a small lower-case w, this was interesting, but not satisfactory. Then again it won the most nominations (ten) for Oscars in 2022.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 2