Last night’s opening of the revival of Tom Stoppard’s “The Real Thing” brought out a lot of interesting guests including Cary Fukunaga, producer-writer of one of my favorite shows, “True Detective.” We talked about the movie he just shot with Idris Elba, called “Beasts of No Nation.” Shot in West Africa with local actors, the movie will go the festival circuit in 2015, maybe even to Cannes.

Fukunaga was sporting a Johnny Depp look — long hair, hat– and was one of the nicest, softest spoken guys I’ve met. He told me, however, that he is not returning to “True Detective.” There had been reports that he was going to be listed as Executive Producer, but we didn’t discuss that. He made it pretty clear (I was surprised) that he won’t return to the second season of the show. What will he do? “Promote the movie, maybe make another one. I’ve got some TV things lined up, too.”

“You’re turning the show over to people who know what they’re doing, I guess, I said. Fukunaga shrugged. “I hope so,” he said. My feeling is the show will be fine, and he has bigger fish to fry. This guy is off to make movies. The agents in attendance were already introducing him to “Real Thing” star Ewan MacGregor, and Fukunaga was in deep chat with Maggie Gyllenhaal’s screenwriter mother Naomi Foner.

PS Don’t jump all over me on this. I haven’t followed any of the backstage saga at “True Detective.” For more on that, Google it, I guess.

I am happy to report that Rene Russo is back in the movies! She co-stars this week in her husband Dan Gilroy’s exceellent film “Nightcrawler” with Jake Gyllenhaal. Rene took five year off after working since age 9. Some people– like me!– thought it was because of something she told a TV show recently about being “bi-polar.”

“Oh no!” Russo said at the Stone Rose (Time Warner Center) after party for “Nightcrawler” this week. She laughed. “I  think I was always bi-polar, or something! That’s not the reason I took time off! ” Her off handed remark got a lot of headlines. But Russo seems about as grounded as a person could be after making a lot of movies with Mel Gibson (in his pre-crazy days), Pierce Brosnan, Kevin Costner, Dennis Quaid, Al Pacino– the list of leading men goes on and on. Russo is always the number 1 choice to play “the wife” in big budget movies.

“Nightcrawlers” should fix that. Rene plays a local TV news producer in LA with a voracious appetite for ratings, headlines, and personal enjoyment. In one scene, she kicks the LAPD out of her station (improbably but fun to watch). She flirts shamelessly with Gyllenhaal, who’s getting Oscar buzz for his role as a freelance cameraman who scours LA at night looking for sensational stories.

So what’s Russo been doing? “Gardening,” she says. “And being with my daughter. It was time.” Now she’s back, if anyone wants to know . She’s got one film in the can, and she’s starring in Nancy Meyers’ “The Intern” next. According to the imdb, she’s 60. But 60 is the new 40 in Hollywood. Rene is a fox. And she’s had no plastic surgery. (Maybe the gardening is good for you!)

PS “Nightcrawler” is one of my favorite films of this year. And it’s a Gilroy family affair. Dan wrote and directed, Tony — best known for writing three “Bourne” movies and “Michael Clayton” — is a producer on this one, and brother John is the film editor! By the way, superstar cinematographer Robert Elswit makes “Nightcrawler” look pretty damn sumptuous.