True Detective's Abigail Spencer Promises Many Strong Women This Time

If you caught the debut season of HBO’s True Detective, you know there wasn’t much room for actress Michelle Monaghan to stretch. But Abigail Spencer, an actress cast in the new season of the rabidly anticipated show, says there are plenty of strong ladies this time.

Season 2 of True Detective premieres on June 21 and, like Season 1, centers around a murder investigation. Unlike Season 1, Season 2 will feature several women in the forefront. Rachel McAdams plays Sheriff Ani Bezzerides, Kelly Reilly is Jordan Semyon, wife of Vince Vaughn’s character Frank, and Spencer plays Alicia, who’s a bit of a mystery since the script so tightly under wraps.

In a chat with Deadline, Spencer didn’t reveal much about Alicia specifically but she did elaborate on how viewers would be satisfied with the amount of girl power in this season.

You know, this season is very different than season 1 and there are more characters this season. I think that you can tell from the first trailers that have been released that Rachel McAdams’ character is not lacking on complexity or strength. I find women in general just amazingly complex and strong, so I don’t lead with that, but I definitely want to serve my character’s throughline, and there are times when she’s going to be incredibly strong and yet incredibly fragile, incredibly broken, trying to do the right thing as I think all the characters on the show are. So, I felt incredibly supported by Nic (Pizzolatto) and the material to do that and it’s really cool just to be a part of this moment with True Detective and with television in general. In the last year I’ve gotten to play Amantha on Rectify and then to play another amazing character on True Detective and then on Suits. I’m getting a lot of opportunities to do really cool stuff, so I’m speaking to the generality I guess of where television is at, but particularly on True Detective there’s going to be some amazing performances from the women on the show for sure.