Reasons to Love Toronto Now: because Rachel McAdams got the role she deserves

Back in 2004, when Rachel McAdams wrapped her rain-drenched legs around Ryan Gosling in The Notebook, she was hailed as the most promising ingenue of her generation. But in the decade since, McAdams has made 21 films—and never earned the critical recognition of her contemporaries. Now, like so many other actors, she’s found her meatiest role on TV. This summer, she’ll star in HBO’s True Detective, playing a California sheriff with a double-barrelled addiction to booze and gambling, opposite Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn. When the script floated through Hollywood every ambitious actress of McAdams’ cohort descended on the part, including Elisabeth Moss, Jessica Biel and Keira Knightley. But McAdams got it, and when you look back at the films in her canon, it’s clear why. Onscreen, she’s gutsy, compelling and adept at breaking type—she played an ass-kicking terrorist in Red Eye, a wounded Iraq war vet with a heavy right hook in The Lucky Ones and a viciously manipulative boss in the erotic thriller Passion. Details of the True Detective plot are guarded, but it sounds irresistible: it’s said to revolve around the California transportation system, incorporating drugs, the mob and a monumental orgy.