Jodie Foster has revealed that a free diver had to swim down and rescue her after she shot a dramatic drowning sequence for True Detective: Night Country.

Foster, 61, plays Alaskan Detective Liz Danvers in the series, which aired its finale this weekend.

While speaking to GQ , Foster was asked about filming a scene in which Danvers falls through broken ice into the sea.

“That was the scariest day,” Foster told the magazine. “They built a tank. My boots were weighted, my parka was weighted, everything was weighted, because I had to drop. It was completely dark and I couldn’t wear contact lenses, so I couldn’t see.

“Everything, except for one small area [of the surface] was closed, so I couldn’t figure out how to get to the top. And, because I was weighted, I couldn’t, even if I tried. Once they cut, a free diver had to come and rescue me and bring me to the surface because I couldn’t find it. It was panic-inducing.”

In a four-star review of the show, The Independent’s television critic Nick Hilton wrote: “In the word cloud of adjectives used to describe Jodie Foster over the course of her career, I suspect that ‘cold’ and ‘icy’ would be quite large – so, she’s perfectly cast here. Reis brings more fragility and humanity to her side of the detective duo.”

Kali Reis plays Alaska state trooper Evangeline Navarro on the show, and the former world champion boxer recently told The Independent that working with two-time Academy Award winner Foster was like training in a “gym full of champs”.

“I’m not walking into a gym to be the big dog; I want to be the worst one in the room so I can get better,” she said, adding of Foster: “She doesn’t take anything too seriously – if she screws up, she screws up, and she’s so generous with her knowledge, her time, her ideas. She’s an amazing person.”

True Detective: Night Country creator Issa López recently explained the reason behind the series’ callbacks and references to the show’s acclaimed season one, which starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.

López told The Independent: ”It’s very important to me to say the world where Dora Lange died in 2007 in Louisiana is the exact same world where the scientists disappear in 2024. So how do you establish those realities? Just to say, ‘This is the same world.’”