‘True Detective’ Season 3 Adds ‘Girls Trip’ Actress Deborah Ayorinde

Girls Trip actress Deborah Ayorinde has been added to the highly anticipated third season of True Detective on HBO.

According to Deadline, she will play a character named Becca Hayes, the “estranged daughter of retired Arkansas State Police detective Wayne Hayes,” who is played by Oscar-winning actor Mahershala Ali.

Additional cast members include Stephen Dorff (Blade), Ray Fisher (Justice League), Carmen Ejogo (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), Scoot McNairy (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), and Mamie Gummer (Emily Owens, M.D.).

Series creator Nic Pizzolatto is back on-board as a co-writer, and the new season will reportedly focus on one crime over three different time-periods in the Ozarks, with Ali’s Wayne Hayes as the main character.

While the new season of the anthology series has many fans excited, there was a time when the future of the show was uncertain.

In 2016, Entertainment Weekly reported that HBO programming boss Casey Bloys was sure the show would return, saying, “It is not dead.”

“I talked to Nic about it and both Nic and HBO are open to another season. I don’t think Nic has a take and he’s working on some other projects,” he said at the time. “We’re open to somebody else writing it and Nic supervising it. It’s a valuable franchise, it’s not dead, we just don’t have a take for a third season yet.”

Pizzolatto wrote all of seasons one (2014) and two (2015), with fellow novelist Scott Lasser stepping in to help him with some of season two.

While season one of True Detective was mostly received with worldwide acclaim, season two did not capture the same level of praise, which is likely why the network was leery to jump right back into a third season.

Ultimately, Pizzolatto remained deeply involved and has written the entire third season, with assistance from Deadwood creator David Milch.

Green Room director Jeremy Saulnier helmed the first two episodes of the new season, but was forced to leave the show due to scheduling conflicts. It was recently announced that Pizzolatto and Daniel Sackheim (The Americans, Game of Thrones) would handle directing duties on the remaining episodes.

Interestingly, Matthew McConaughey previously expressed interest in returning the role he originated in season one of the series, saying, “I miss Rust Cohle, man.”

“I miss watching him on Sunday nights,” he added, according to Vanity Fair, eventually suggesting that if it ever happened the story would have to be perfect.

“It would have to be the right context, the right way,” McConaughey continued. “That thing—when I read [the original script] I knew in 20 minutes if I can play this guy, Rustin Cohle, I’m in.”

Season three of True Detective is currently in production. No premiere date has been announced.