The nail-biting action of True Detective: Night Country takes place in the fictional town of Ennis, Alaska—a.k.a., “The End of the World.” Although the filmmakers, led by creator and showrunner Issa López, did go on a research trip to Alaska, the HBO series really came to life in Iceland, where most of the episodes were shot on location, at night, in the dead of winter. It was a massive undertaking for series producer Mari-Jo Winkler and production designer Daniel Taylor, who spent 14 months in Iceland to prep and shoot.
“We had eight or nine days in Alaska, where we met some amazing people,” says Taylor. “Having the opportunity to stand in the space, breathe in the air, speak to the people, and live in that environment for a short period was so beneficial. We went straight from there to Iceland with it fresh in our minds.”
The season stars Jodie Foster and Kali Reis as the Ennis police chief and a state trooper, respectively. Having been at odds over a past case, the two reluctantly team up to solve the murder of eight scientists who disappear from an isolated Arctic research station only to be found frozen together on the ice. The tense finale, aired Sunday, February 18, leads the pair into a series of ice tunnels connected to the station, where the mystery’s many loose threads unravel entirely.
Here, Taylor and Winkler discuss how Ennis was put together, those terrifying ice tunnels, and True Detective Easter eggs.
Did you base Ennis, Alaska, on a real place?
Daniel Taylor: Kind of. When we went to Nome and Kotzebue in Alaska we had already seen the scripts. The town was there [on the page]. We knew we needed domestic interiors, sketchy neighborhoods, a fish factory, a saloon or bar, and an industrial area. I ended up meshing together Nome and Kotzebue. The populations of the two, when combined, were the right size for Ennis. My art department mapped out everything—where the airport was, where the lab was, how long the journey time was, and where people lived in relation to each other.
