It makes sense that “Coyote” has been shot with a multinational cast and crew, as the new drama series starring Michael Chiklis is about life on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Half of our editorial staff is Mexican and from South and Central America,” says Chiklis, 57, who plays a U.S. Border Patrol agent on the CBS All Access series. “We wanted people from all corners of this equation to weigh their perspective so that it was represented in our scripts.
“We had a border patrol officer who was also our technical advisor [border patrol] people on the Mexican side of the border, “he says.” It’s a tricky line to walk, but I think we’ve done it very successfully. “
At the premiere of Thursday’s series, viewers are met with the tough, dedicated and respected Ben Clemens (Chiklis), who is retiring noisily and reluctantly after 32 years of work. Divorced, with a teenage daughter, he heads to Mexico to finish the construction of the house that his co-worker, Javi Lopez (played by Jose Pablo Cantillo), was building on a picturesque cliff on the beach before to know his death.
“This is a good man who has made some terrible mistakes and is trying to reconcile those mistakes and save his life,” Chiklis says. “Try changing your own epitaph, you know?”
But it is his trip to Mexico that triggers the multilayered plot of “Coyote”, when Ben tries to help a teenage girl, Maria Elena Flores (Emy Mena), who is pregnant with a local drug lord and desperate to escape his urpes. He finds himself embroiled in a dangerous life-altering situation that is played on both sides of the border in a series of unexpected twists.
“This show is about a conversation between Mexico and the United States, about a collision of cultures that is taking place on borders around the world,” says Chiklis, a 2002 Emmy winner for “The Shield.” “You can relate to so many people who live in countries where cultures face each other and have to find a way to live together.
“I thought it was a very timely and interesting way for a guy who has looked at the world through a particular prism all his life, literally and figuratively, and suddenly has to be on the other side of the wall … and walk 100 miles in another man’s shoes.
“We have completely removed the policy to show and represent all points of view without taking a stand.”
“It’s an interesting way to take a very hot political issue and humanize it,” he says. “We have completely eliminated politics to show and represent all points of view without taking a stand … so that people can see the show and not get so caught up in politics, but in humanity.
“Whatever happens, the border situation remains very current and will continue to be so,” he says. “We wanted to dive even deeper into this situation and see where it takes us.”
On “Coyote” no taking Chiklis and her fellow executive producers, including Michelle MacLaren (“Breaking Bad,” “Game of Thrones”) and David Graziano (“American Gods”), would end the 10-episode series, which was shot in Baja, Mexico.
“We were in the middle of episode 7 when COVID interrupted us,” Chiklis says. “Not without irony, we could not continue once things returned to production a few months ago because we could not go to Mexico.
“If we can continue, and I hope we are, I think [the shutdown] it was a blessing disguised by everything that happened in 2020, “he says.” I feel that this will mark the way forward in all kinds of narratives in relation to this. [border] matter. “