Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson returned to television for a new HBO series True Detective, which premiered on Sunday.

Rust Cohle (McConaughey) and Martin Hart (Harrelson) are paired together to solve one of Louisiana’s most grisly murders. The show spans from 1995, when the duo began investigating the murder, until 2012, when the case was re-opened.

“It’s a whodunnit for the murder case, but what you’re going to see throughout is who these two guys are, and when you see them in 2012, how the hell did they get there and what happened in the interim,” McConaughey said.

“I’m still surprised that this is a series I’m part of,” said Harrelson. “When my agent told me that Matthew was doing this series, and asked if I wanted to read (the script), I was like: ‘Matthew’s doing a series? A series?’ It just seemed so unlikely.”

Surprisingly, Harrelson’s character was originally offered to McConaughey. “They did offer the Hart part originally to him (McConaughey), but he said he wanted to be Cohle. He said he just kept hearing the voice of that character in his head,” Harrelson said.

Harrelson revealed a lot of similarities between himself and his character. “There are many similarities, not the least of which is that he really loves his family,” Harrelson said. McConaughey’s character, on the other hand, is not the least bit like McConaughey. “He’s not good with civilization in society. He doesn’t know how to have an improvised moment. He’s not wired like that. He’s not trying to be antisocial. He’s just a bit of an outlawed monk,” McConaughey said.

McConaughey and Harrelson previously co-starred in the 1999 comedy EDtv and 2008’s indie comedy Surfer, Dude. They admitted that it was hard to not play characters who were buddies, but were instead had a very tense relationship. “We reciprocate, and that’s part of the beauty of our relationship. We add onto each other. We affirm each other… but (in this show), we’re not cozying up to each other,” McConaughey said.

So far, fans seem to love the series, and took to Twitter to express their excitement.

Wow. True Detective on @HBO is enthralling. The start of something special.

— David Krumholtz (@DaveKrumholtz) January 13, 2014

Anyone else catch the True Detective premiere last night? I think this one may satiate me till Game of Thrones in April, thanks HBO.

— Cheryl Harrison (@CherylHarrison) January 13, 2014

Meantime, Matthew McConaughey has been outstanding in everything he's been in recently. Right?? #TrueDetective #SOGOOD

— Martha Plimpton (@MarthaPlimpton) January 13, 2014

true detective definitely off to a good start.

— el-p (@therealelp) January 13, 2014

Wow. True Detective. Harrelson and McConaughey. Crazy good. @carr2n

— Mark McKinnon (@mmckinnon) January 13, 2014

Image via Twitter