True Detective’s Kali Reis Talks Navarro-Danvers Shippers, Love Scenes, and Her Breakout Emmy-Nominated Role

Emmy nominee Kali Reis talks to Awards Daily about her breakout role on HBO’s True Detective: Night Country and going head-to-head with Jodie Foster.

Kali Reis says she fell into acting a little like she did boxing.

“Both of these things, hand in hand, weren’t part of the plan,” says Reis, a former world professional boxing champion. “My family was always into the arts though, so I guess it subliminally prompted me for this, and I always had a performative Virgo-esque type of spirit.”

Boxing had always been her main outlet and passion. She even trained with her older brother while he was in remission from cancer, helping him get his motor skills back. However, when he passed away, Reis says she developed a different type of relationship with the sport.

“For the first time since I’d found boxing, it wasn’t an outlet. It wasn’t doing it for me. I was exploring other things and taking time to grieve. And that was around the time I got approached by Josef Kubota Wladyka for Catch the Fair One [Reis’s first film]. I thought if [acting] was meant for me, it’ll find me. I really want to do something with it. And I just tried to do what I do with everything: make the best of it. And here we are talking about Emmy nominations.”

Yes, HBO’s True Detective: Night Country — for which Reis is nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series — is just the third credit on her IMDB bio.

“Sometimes my husband has to remind me, ‘You deserve to be here! You worked really hard!’ I don’t have any parents in the industry. Nobody gave me anything. I still go, ‘How the hell did I get here?’ Well, in my short time in the industry, I do put in the work.”

Reis has faced many formidable opponents in the ring but no one quite like two-time Academy Award winner Jodie Foster. Throughout the fourth season of the HBO limited series, Reis’s Navarro and Foster’s Danvers butt heads with a natural chemistry that drives the series as much as the mystery of “How did all those naked guys freeze to death like that?”

“I was scared shitless. I was excited but terrified. What better way to get into this entity of True Detective, this major mainstream role, than with somebody who’s been there and has a lot of respect and is a legend of her craft. On top of all the accolades, she’s just a dope person and a real partner. I went from having what we joke around as a black cloud over me to a horseshoe up my ass!”

The chemistry was so palpable that many fans shipped a romance between the two, and Reis says she can see it, as their relationship is a bit like a love story.

“They have the ability to get under each other’s skin, make each other smile, hold space for each other, and aggravate the shit out of each other, but at their core, they do respect and love each other. I love seeing the fans so involved. That just means we did our best to bring a lot of life to these characters, and [showrunner] Issa (Lopez) did an amazing job of writing this story and these very full-of-life characters. It tickles my heart to see so many people invested — because we were so invested.”

While Navarro and Danvers don’t share any love scenes, much to the chagrin of shippers, Navarro and her (sometime) bartender boyfriend Qavvik (Joel D. Montgrand) do. Reis says she quickly learned that there’s nothing sexy about shooting a sex scene.

“Because they take so much care now with intimacy coaching, we have the goal of telling the story of what their relationship was. Issa did a cool job with Navarro’s love scene because you don’t get to see female characters in this type of controlling environment where they say who, when, what, why, where, and I’m out. It was such a flip on its head. It tells a big story of who Navarro is.”

Like her character, Reis isn’t afraid to speak up, and while she welcomes online chatter and feedback about True Detective, one thing she won’t tolerate is racist and sexist comments, something both she and Lopez encountered on social media.

“Issa had a huge job, and English is her second language. This was her first big project in English. She’s basically in the same boat I was. Going into this and telling the story as authentically as we can, everything isn’t for everyone. I come from the brutal world of boxing and a long line of warriors from my heritage, so I’m going to speak up when things need to be spoken about. I let people say what they want to say, but if I have a chance to speak up for the demographics I represent, I will. People can say what they want. But. . .we did get 19 nominations.”

True Detective: Night Country is streaming on MAX.