Issa López was a niche horror auteur from Mexico City when HBO enlisted her to create a fourth season of its True Detective franchise. She then penned and directed all six episodes of True Detective: Night Country, which co-stars Jodie Foster and Kali Reis as Alaskan law enforcement investigating the death of a group of scientists bizarrely entombed in a 2,000-pound hunk of ice that’s dubbed a “corpsicle” by Foster’s character, Liz Danvers. The macabre reboot drew a new wave of admirers — even if series creator Nic Pizzolatto wasn’t among them (he called the season “insulting” and a “hot mess” on Instagram). López checked in with THR the morning of the show’s 12 Emmy noms, including outstanding limited or anthology series.
This is going to be a day you remember the rest of your life. What are you feeling?
I’m a Mexican immigrant. I moved to the U.S. in 2009 and this is the first time after many, many years of developing things that I actually made something in English — and with an international impact like this. It’s surreal. I need to take a breath and understand what just happened, because it’s huge.
Do you think this success will have an effect on the larger Mexican film and TV industry?
Well, I do hope. When I grew up, there was no role model for what I was doing. I grew up in awe of movies like The Silence of the Lambs, which is the reason I went for Jodie Foster. There was not a Mexican woman that was playing in that field. There were some Mexican directors there. But the Mexican women playing on that level didn’t exist. I do hope that for the next generation of Mexican and Latin American female directors, the view of one of us kicking the door open and keeping it open for the next one will matter.
Speaking of Mexican directors who paved the way, I know Guillermo del Toro has been a huge support and inspiration.
Guillermo has been such a champion of my work. I made a movie called Tigers Are Not Afraid, which opened the door for me. We didn’t know each other. And he went above and beyond to sing the praises of the work. When I was making the series and I needed someone to create the corpsicle, I gave him a call and he recommended the team that now is Emmy-nominated for that creation.
Speaking of the corpsicle, where is it stored now? Is it something fans can see for themselves?
I’m mad about that one because it was so impressive to look at and I was very adamant that we should keep it and it was going to become a very dark piece of memorabilia. But HBO doesn’t like to do that. They destroy and recycle the parts. It was a very green production, so it was recycled, which for me feels a little criminal. But that said, there’s a certain poetry in the fact that it lives on the screen for all of us forever.
You really took the show in an exciting new direction. But it’s a show that comes with an established fan base and expectations. That can be difficult to maneuver.
It was. Fans of the first season came for the ride and understood that this was going to go deeper in some of the things than the first season did, and it was going to move away in some others. Some of them hated the series and became very vocal. I suspect that this was possibly related to the fact that where the first series was very male, this was extremely female. Where the first series was extremely white, this was multicolored. It moved in a direction that some of that fan base resisted, and some of them just didn’t like it, and that’s OK. Some of them loved it. It was very divisive.
It was upsetting to me when Nic Pizzolatto was saying negative things about the season on social media. It just felt wrong to me.
For me, it was very confusing. To have created something that you have three goes at, very successful ones — and then it becomes something so meaningful that different filmmakers and different voices are going to come on board and keep it alive beyond you — is the dream. When I move on, someone else is going to come and take the mantle and go in a completely different direction, and that’s going to be so exciting to me to watch. It feels a little silly to not enjoy that achievement, really.
Can you tell us anything about season five?
I’m dying for everyone to know because it’s very different and very exciting. It’s even darker and even more twisted. I can’t wait to put it out there.
This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
