Character

Hank Prior

Hank Prior in True Detective (2014), played by John Hawkes.

Hank Prior is a trooper in the isolated Alaskan town of Ennis, a company man who has spent his career waiting for a promotion that keeps passing him by. Father to fellow officer Peter Prior, he is proud, a little bruised, and increasingly out of step with the world closing in around the station.

John Hawkes plays disappointment as a quiet, corrosive thing rather than a tantrum — Hank's resentment toward Danvers and his own stalled career reads in small slights and sideways looks long before it's spoken aloud. It's a performance built on a man convinced he deserves better, and Hawkes makes that conviction sad rather than villainous.

Played by

Appears in

True Detective2014