‘True Detective’ eyeing Nicolas Cage to lead Season 5

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HBO’s hit crime series “True Detective” is reportedly eyeing Nicolas Cage to star in Season 5, per Variety. 

The season would be set in Jamaica Bay, New York City. No other details about its plot or other potential stars have been shared. 

The “National Treasure” star, 61, is known for his bombastic performances and his eccentric personal life.

For instance, in 2015 he made headlines for needing to return a stolen Tyrannosaurus dinosaur skull that he had purchased for $276,000. 

The “Con Air” actor also bought himself a 9-foot pyramid-shaped mausoleum in New Orleans’ historic St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.

The “Peggy Sue Got Married” actor’s personal life has also received attention through the years. He and his fifth wife, Riko Shibata, tied the knot in 2021. At the time of their wedding, she was 26, four years younger than his oldest son.

He previously was married to Patricia Arquette (from 1995 to 2001) and Lisa Marie Presley (from 2002 to 2004). 

The father of three also named one of his sons Kal-El, 19, after Superman. (His other two kids have less unusual names; Weston, 34, and August, 2).

In June 2023, Mimi Driver shared on Instagram that she was once on a plane with Cage and his son, “and a seat had also been purchased for his son’s imaginary friend.” 

In recent years, his career choices have reflected his oddball nature, as he was unrecognizable as an androgynous serial killer in the 2024 horror movie “Longlegs,” he played a man searching for his beloved pig in the 2021 movie “Pig,” and he starred as Dracula in the 2023 movie “Renfield.” 

Even in his early years, the “Face / Off” star’s roles were idiosyncratic, such as the 1987 film “Moonstruck,” where he starred opposite Cher and played her temperamental love interest who had a wooden prosthetic hand.

“I try to pick and choose my material based on what I can do to challenge myself and make myself uncomfortable,” Cage said during a 2014 panel at  South by Southwest.

“True Detective” originally premiered on HBO in 2014. Each season has been a new story with a different cast solving a grisly series of crimes. 

Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson starred in Season 1, while the critically panned Season 2 starred Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn, Taylor Kitsch and Rachel McAdams. 

Mahershala Ali starred in Season 3, and Jodie Foster led Season 4. 

Harrelson, McConaughey, Ali, and Foster all scored Emmy nominations.

Foster won both an Emmy and Golden Globe Award for her role. Season 4 was the most-watched installment of the show, with 12.7 million viewers.

“I’ve satisfied a certain need in my own head about performance style,” Cage said in his 2014 South By Southwest talk. “I think ‘Face/Off’ is the best example of that. I’m at this time wanting to get more ‘quietude,’ what Hemingway would call the taut fishing line. I wanted to have that simplicity again.”

If “True Detective” casts Cage, it could be the Oscar winner’s first-ever starring TV role. He’s also reportedly starring in “Noir,” a spinoff of “Spider Man: Into the Spider Verse” for MGM+ and Amazon Prime Video.

HBO hasn’t announced a premiere date for “True Detective” Season 5.