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Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in True Detective

WATCHING THE DETECTIVES

The first season of True Detective was a hard act to follow, but Nic Pizzolatto has it all worked out in his mind.

Following months of secrecy and rampant speculation, the True Detective creator and lead writer dropped some tantalizing hints about the show's upcoming second season in an interview on the NPR program To The Best of Our Knowledge this week.

To lead off with the obvious, Pizzolatto confirmed that the followup season will introduce two brand-new cops to replace True Detective originals Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.

"The characters are all new," said Pizzicato, who penned all eight episodes of the gritty crime drama's inaugural season. "But I'm deeply in love with each of them. We've got the entire series broken out with a couple of scripts, and we'll probably start casting in earnest in the coming months."

Considered the buzz TV show of 2014, True Detective debuted on HBO and HBO Canada last January and ratings climbed steadily each week for the gripping crime story starring McConaughey and Harrelson as two hard-boiled detectives tracking a serial killer in rural Louisiana.

By the time True Detective reached its first-season conclusion on March 9, so many people were watching that the finale actually crashed HBO's GO live-streaming video service.

Not surprisingly, the fan fervour over True Detective has prompted all manner of rumours and suggestions for the sophomore campaign.

Already raised and debunked is the rumour that Zero Dark Thirty star Jessica Chastain would play a lead cop role in the new season.

Even less substantiated are the rumours that Brad Pitt, Christian Bale or the "Emma Trifecta" – Emma Stone, Emma Watson, Emma Thompson – have been approached to star in the series.

What we know for certain: The next season of True Detective will shift location.

"It takes place in California," said Pizzolatto. "Not Los Angeles, but some of the much lesser-known venues of California, and we're going to try to capture a certain psychosphere ambience of the place, much like we did in season one."

But in terms of storyline specifics, the True Detective creator is shrewdly playing his cards close to his chest.

"This is really early," said Pizzolatto in a recent interview with HitFix, "but I'll tell you it's about hard women, bad men and the secret occult history of the United States transportation system."

True Detective is expected to return for its second season early next year.

ON THE MEND

Rocker Deryck Whibley has reached out to his fan base to let them know he's on the road to recovery. One week after reports surfaced that the Sum 41 frontman was in the hospital for health problems related to "hard boozing," he went onto his personal website recently to thank his fans. "I just wanted to thank you all so much for sending gifts and all of the compassion and support you have shown me," wrote Whibley, 34. "It really means a lot to me in this time of recovery. I will be better soon and back out on stage before you know it."

Source: People

FATHER FIGURE

Robert De Niro reveals that he grew up with an openly gay father in a new documentary. The HBO documentary Remembering the Artist: Robert De Niro Sr. features the Oscar-winning actor sharing personal stories about his late father, a renowned figurative painter who passed away in 1994. In an interview with Out Magazine, De Niro said that there was no way to avoid discussing his father's sexuality in the film. "I felt obligated," said De Niro. "It was my responsibility to make a documentary about him. I was always planning on doing it, but never did … it was just something I wanted to do."

Source: People

DANCE FEVER

Believe it or not: The music video for Gangnam Style is rapidly closing in on two-billion views on YouTube. As of Wednesday, the bouncy dance hit by the Korean pop star known as Psy had 1,997,353,000 views. The video was originally uploaded to YouTube on July 15, 2012, and reached the one-billion mark in December of that year. Gangnam Style also spent 31 weeks on Billboard's Hot 100 List, peaking in the number-two position. Psy's followup single Gentleman currently ranks seventh on the most popular YouTube list with 700-million views.

Source: Mashable

GAG REFLEX

If someone ever plans an Angelina Jolie film festival, they should probably leave out the sci-fi film Cyborg 2. In a recent interview with Buzzfeed, the Maleficent star revealed that she had a negative reaction when she first watched the 1993 feature casting her as a robot assassin with human emotions. "Oh, I threw up," said Jolie in the interview. "I did. I saw it and I threw up. Just nausea. But the kickboxing was fun." In her own defence, Jolie said she was still a teenager when she made the low-budget feature: "I was 17 and I think I thought I was making a real movie, which is odd, since there's a scene when I'm decapitated and talking."

Source: E!

BABY NEWS

Hayden Panettiere is going to be a mother. The 24-year-old Nashville star is expecting her first child with fiancé Wladimir Klitschko. In a recent interview with Glamour magazine, Panettiere expressed her desire to start a family. "I've lived a very big life and I don't feel my age and I feel like I was born to be a mother," said Panettiere. And what might her offspring with the hulking pro boxer look like? "He's got bow legs and I've got knocked knees, so they're going to have straight legs," predicted Panettiere.

Source: Us

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