Rachel McAdams on True Detective Role: ‘I Love That She’s Not the Girlfriend or the Wife’

When the new season of True Detective kicks off June 21, Rachel McAdams will be playing one of the leads. But don’t expect her character to have much in common with the types she plays in movies – or, for that matter, with female characters in the first season of the show.

“I love that she’s not the girlfriend or the wife,” McAdams, 36, says in the June issue of Marie Claire about her character, a Ventura, California, police officer named Ani Bezzerides. “She doesn’t really care what everyone thinks; she feels no responsibility for other people’s feelings. She’s not trying to be charming, which isn’t always the case with a leading lady.”

McAdams’ mention of her character not being the love interest of a more prominent male character could be interpreted as a response to criticism of the show’s first season for not featuring complex female characters. The most prominent female character, played by Michelle Monaghan, was the wife to Woody Harrelson‘s Detective Marty Hart. The new season focuses on McAdams’ Bezzarides as she investigates a murder.

This article originally appeared on PEOPLE.com