‘True Detective’ Deleted Scene Shows Rust Cohle’s Fear of Fatherhood
UPDATE: This clip has been removed per HBO’s request.
A deleted scene from True Detective reveals the philosophies that kept Matthew McConaughey’s character, Rust Cohle, from becoming a father. He talks about his worries in it with Laurie Spencer, the character played by Twilight series and Grey’s Anatomy actress Elizabeth Reaser in the first season’s fifth episode, in a clip premiered by Extra. As a whole, the idea of bringing children into the world is a touchy subject for the reclusive detective.
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“We’ve discussed this,” he says, coolly. “As a subject, it’s one that I’ve closed off to myself.”
Although Spencer tries to sympathize with Cohle, who (spoiler!) lost his daughter in a car accident, he unilaterally shuts her down. “There’s nothing to heal,” he tells her. “I’ll tell you, it’s a philosophical decision.”
“If you really think the reason you don’t want to have kids is philosophical,” she later counters, “then you’re a blind man describing an elephant.”
“It’s wrong,” he says. “And that’s how I feel.”
It’s a chilly scene full of awkward silence and no matter what Spencer does, she cannot console Cohle. “It’s not about you,” he tells her. “I wouldn’t have children with anyone.” And that’s just at the halfway mark in the scene, in which the tension only builds.
Director Cary Fukunaga, who helmed all eight True Detective episodes, commented on Cohle’s inherent coldness in a recent interview. “Cohle is this lone wolf on the outside and he can philosophize but you don’t really see how he or his behavior affects other people,” he said. “He’s purposely isolated. There were more scenes with [Cohle and Detective Marty] Hart’s family that didn’t make it into the show, about his daughter and his relationship with [Marty’s wife] Maggie. I always found that stuff the most interesting to shoot in terms of human drama.”