The True Detective GQ+A: Michelle Monaghan on Working with Harrelson and McConaughey and Filming While Pregnant


It's been a long time since we've seen Michelle Monaghan on TV. The actress has been starring in feature films like Mission: Impossible 3, Gone Baby Gone, and the forthcoming Better Living Through Chemistry for a decade.And yet, when she received the script for HBO's series True Detective, she didn't even hesitate. "Without question, without a shadow of a doubt, I knew I wanted to be part of it from the second I read the first episode," Monaghan told GQ. Her performance as Maggie, the discontented wife of FBI homicide detective Marty (Woody Harrelson), is a knockout: Monaghan conveys warmth and comfort, with a restless undercurrent of anger and a hint of untapped strength. Moreover, she holds her own alongside scene stealers Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey. GQ talked to Michelle Monaghan about shooting while pregnant, working with Matthew and Woody, and what's in store for Maggie over her seventeen-year arc.


GQ: I read that you were pregnant when you shot True Detective!
Monaghan: I was, yeah! I found out a few months after we started that I was pregnant.

GQ:  Did that make it as emotionally intense as I would imagine?
Monaghan: It didn't really so much, to be honest. I was at the beginning stages of my pregnancy, and it never really feels real anyway, until you actually start showing and you start to feel the baby kick. Fortunately I didn't have any morning sickness or anything like that. And I really didn't want to be distracted from the work at hand, so I didn't tell anybody. It was really just towards the end of shooting where I was about five months, where I needed to tell a costume designer. But it was very fortuitous that the show actually spans seventeen years—so as I was getting older on the show, I was gaining weight. When I'm playing fifty, I'm ten pounds heavier! I don't know if they thought maybe I was method? But it actually worked to my benefit.

GQ: So did you shoot sequentially then?
Monaghan: For the most part, we did. [Director Cary Fukunaga] really looked at this as a very long movie. Occasionally with certain locations, we weren't able to do that. But it is such a big monster of a story. It just works to everybody's benefit to be able to shoot in sequence as much as possible.

GQ: Let's talk about some of your big scenes so far. The first time we see Maggie and Marty fight, in the kitchen, he accuses her of feeling sorry for herself. And she's clearly holding a lot of things back. What do you think is going through her head at that point about the relationship?
Monaghan: I think at that point, she's wondering who she's married to. She sees a man who is becoming increasingly deluded, who's really self-involved, who's completely disconnected from the family and consumed by work. Listen, they've been together for years, so obviously, it's been a bit of a snowball effect. But I think what's the most concerning is how deluded he's become, and how selfish he's become. So I think at that point, she's just sort of taking it all in and digesting it. And really trying to figure out what the next move is going to be.

GQ: In the 2012 scenes, we see Marty explaining that his affair was for the good of the family. Do you think it would have surprised Maggie to hear him say that?
Monaghan: No, I don't think it would have surprised Maggie at all to have heard that. I really see Marty as someone who is incredibly brave at work, that really thrives at his job, but he's a complete coward at home. He's a very smart man, clearly, as we see as he investigates the case, but he's also a complete and utter fool. So I think that she realizes all these aspects of his personality, and I don't think anything, really, surprises her, because I think she's lived with this deceit for quite some time, and he justifies all of his behavior. He doesn't hold himself accountable for anything.

GQ: Maggie and Rust have an immediate connection when they meet. At this point in the story, what are those two characters getting from one other?
Monaghan: I think what she's getting from him is exactly what she's not getting from her husband. She sees somebody in Rust who's thoughtful, who's open, and that's really intriguing to her. He's a bit of a mystery, but at the same time, he will answer a question honestly that she poses to him, whereas she doesn't get any of that from Marty. She sees a man that's lacking a family, somebody who's also been through a lot of pain. And I think Maggie is a nurturer at heart. She really wants to just see him taken care of. And she kind of becomes his matchmaker.

GQ: She moves into that role pretty quickly.
Monaghan: Yeah. And I think that she considers him kind of a conduit, almost, into Marty. Because she's so closed off from Marty—very closed off, I think, in terms of work and what's going on—that it's like she can indirectly be part of Marty's life through Rust, in a way.

GQ: One theme I'm seeing in this show is the idea of who has power, and how tough it is for a woman to have any power in a man's world. Is that something you see playing out for Maggie?
Monaghan: Completely. She's a very bright and smart woman, and she will do anything to protect her children. As the series progresses, you start to see her strength unveiled, episode after episode. She's butting up against this idea that she's not taken seriously by her husband, she's not respected. With Rust's character, too, she's almost an afterthought, in terms of the way that they communicate with her. And I think both men make the mistake, ultimately, of underestimating her.

GQ: Matthew and Woody are very good friends; was it strange to be literally in the middle of those two?
Monaghan: It was actually a total pleasure. You know, it was the first time I worked with Matthew, but Woody and I actually worked together years ago on North Country. So I felt completely at ease. They're fun guys. They don't take life at all too seriously, but yet they take their work very seriously. And both of them are just so committed to character and the story. So it was really just a pleasure, in that sense to have them as scene partners. But it was even more of a pleasure in between takes, because they're telling great stories, and they really just sort of let loose. So there's that nice dynamic on set where you can kind of be a free spirit as much as they are.

GQ: That's funny, because Woody said something to the press about Matthew staying in character the whole time on set. I had this funny image of the cast sitting around at the Golden Globes, watching his speech, being like, "Who's that guy?"
Monaghan: [Laughs] He was probably maintaining character a little bit. There were certain days moreso than others, I think. You know, it's an intense show, even in terms of the dialogue—there's a little rhythm to it, in particular in his monologues. I think on those days, he really had to stay in the zone. Because there's a certain cadence in which that character speaks and talks about life, you know? But then there are other days that he was able to be a little more loose.

GQ: I just found out that True Detective isn't on next week. Waiting two weeks for the next episode is going to be torture.
Monaghan: My husband feels the same way. He's like, "It is killing me because I can't binge-watch this one!" And a lot of people feel that way. It's such a slow burn of a show, which is great. But I think we're so used to being able to binge-watch things, or there's a really big pay-off after each episode. With this one, you really are being asked to get emotionally invested in it. And I'm telling you, it just builds and builds and builds.

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