True Detective season 3: Stephen Dorff joins HBO series cast

Mahershala Ali was previously announced as co-lead

Work on True Detective’s third season seems fully underway with the latest casting choice having been announced.

Stephen Dorff, best known for playing the villain in Blade and who recently appeared in the TV series Star, joins the Oscar-winning actor Mahershala Ali as co-lead.

As has already been revealed, the upcoming season takes place over a decade, seeing the actors play the same characters in three separate time periods.

Taking place in the Ozarks — a mountainous location that recently served as the backdrop for the Netflix series Ozark — Ali will play state police detective Wayne Hays, from Northwest Arkansas.

Investigating the mysterious and baffling crime is Hays’ partner Roland West, played by Dorff, an Arkansas State Investigator.

“The next instalment of True Detective tells the story of a macabre crime in the heart of the Ozarks, and a mystery that deepens over decades and plays out in three separate time periods,” the official log-line reads.

Creator Nic Pizzolatto acts as the sole writer on every episode bar one, episode four which was co-written with David Milch (who also helped shape the season). Pizzolatto will direct alongside Green Room’s Jeremy Saulnier.

“I’m tremendously thrilled to be working with artists at the level of Mahershala and Jeremy,” the showrunner previously said. “I hope the material can do justice to their talents, and we’re all very excited to tell this story.”

There’s currently no comment on release date or episode count for the HBO series, but seasons one and two both consisted of eight episodes so expect something similar.

While True Detective's first season is considered to be a modern classic, its second run didn't fare so well; starring Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn, Rachel McAdams and Taylor Kitsch, the California-set season was widely perceived to be inferior to its predecessor.