Oscar winner Mahershala Ali will star in the third series of True Detective.

The actor, who won a supporting gong at the Academy Awards earlier this year for his role in Moonlight, confirmed the news on Instagram.

Season 3 @hbo

A post shared by Mahershala Ali (@mahershalaali) on

He posted a still from the first series of the anthology show, which starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson and captioned it: “Season 3 @hbo.”

Casey Bloys, president of programming at HBO, told the Television Critics Association he had read five finished scripts for the new series from creator Nic Pizzolatto, Deadline reported.

Nic Pizzolatto (Ian West/PA)

He said: “They are terrific… I was very impressed and excited. We are talking to directors, and when we have a director we want to hire, it will be a go.”

The first series of the show was a critical hit but the second, starring Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn and Rachel McAdams, drew a far more mixed reaction.

Bloys told critics more time would be given to write scripts this time around.