It makes sense that ‘Coyote’ was co-recorded with a multi-national cast and crew member, as the new drama series starring Michael Chiklis deals with life on both sides of the American-Mexico border.
“Half of our writing staff is Mexican and comes from South and Central America,” said Chiklis, 57, a former U.S. Border Patrol agent in the CBS All Access series. ‘We wanted people from every corner of this equation to weigh their perspective so that it is represented in our texts.
‘We had a border patrol agent who was also our technical adviser [border patrol] people from the Mexican side of the border, ”he says. “It’s a tricky line to walk, but I feel we’ve done it very successfully.”
During Thursday’s premiere, viewers meet the tough, dedicated and respected Ben Clemens (Chiklis), who retires loud and reluctant after 32 years at work. Divorced, with a teenage daughter, he leaves for Mexico to complete the house his co-worker, Javi Lopez (played by Jose Pablo Cantillo), built on a picturesque beach cliff before meeting his death.
“This is a good man who made terrible mistakes and is trying to reconcile the mistakes and save his life,” Chiklis said. “He’s trying to change his own epitaph, you know?”
But it is his journey to Mexico that causes the multifaceted ‘Coyote’ plotline: when Ben tries to help a teenager, Maria Elena Flores (Emy Mena), who is pregnant by a local drug lord and desperate to escape from his clutches . He finds himself trapped in a dangerous, life-changing situation that plays itself out on both sides of the border in a series of unexpected turns.
“This show is about a conversation between Mexico and the USA, about a clash of cultures taking place at borders around the world,” says Chiklis, a 2002 Emmy winner for ‘The Shield’. ‘It relates to so many people living in countries where cultures are pushed against each other and have to find a way to coexist.
‘I thought it was a very timely and interesting way for a man who had looked at the world through a certain prism all his life to be literally and figuratively and suddenly on the other side of the wall. and walk 100 miles in another one. men’s shoes.
“We have completely removed politics from showing and presenting all points of view without taking a stand.”
“This is an interesting way to take a political topic with a very hot button and humanize it,” he says. ‘We have completely removed politics to show and present all points of view without taking a stand … so that people can look at the program and not get so caught up in politics, but in humanity.
“No matter what happens, the border situation is still very topical and will remain so,” he says. “We wanted to dive even deeper into this situation and see where it takes us.”
Where ‘Coyote’ do not have takes Chiklis and his co-executive producers, including Michelle MacLaren (“Breaking Bad”, “Game of Thrones”) and David Graziano (“American Gods”), would complete the series of ten episodes, shot in Baja, Mexico . .
“We were in the middle of Episode 7 when we were interrupted by COVID,” says Chiklis. ‘Not without irony, we could not continue once things were back in production a few months back because we could not go to Mexico.
‘If we can continue, and I hope we are, I think [the shutdown] was a blessing in disguise because of everything that happened in 2020, ”he says. ‘I feel it will shape the way forward in all kinds of storytelling about this [border] issue.”