The star of 'Narcos' is cocaine: Showrunner

Eric Newman wants to explore the complex and dark world of drug trafficking with "Narcos" series, and says the star of the show is cocaine.

Newman's "Narcos" made its debut by narrating the rise and fall of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar with focus on Medellin cartel. The story continued in the second season as well. The third season explored the world of Cali Cartel. And the fourth chapter from the series traces the origins of the modern drug war with Mexico chapter A-- "Narcos: Mexico".

"Every nation struggled with drug struggle. The same cocaine is available in Mumbai, Tokyo or Mexico. We all face same struggle. The star of 'Narcos' is cocaine. We are trying to look at the dark web that ties it all together," Newman said at a panel discussion on Monday here.

"Narcos: Mexico" begins at a time when the Mexican trafficking world was a loose and disorganised confederation of independent growers and dealers. It features Diego Luna as drug lord Felix Gallardo and Michael Pena as a DEA agent Kiki Camarena. The show will premiere on November 16 on Netflix.

"I first heard stories about the drug lord in mid 1990s. It was a problem which we had ignored. There weren't a lot of stories about it. A drug lord would show up in a Jack Ryan' movie but it really hadn't been examined so I started examining as a film," he recalled.

But he realised that "you can't really get to know a character" with a two-hour film."It is much more complex. Characters need to be depicted with certain complexities that can be achieved in series format," he said, adding that his goal is to humanise all characters present in the story.

Talking about the forthcoming "Narcos: Mexico", he said: "The plan was (always) to take (the story) to Mexico. We perhaps thought to follow it chronologically from 1996 onwards to the war against drug today with the same players. But when we started to do the research, we learned that it was impossible not to tell Guadalajara Cartel and that period was 1980, which marked its beginning.

"At the same time, we felt this as a stand alone series."

How challenging is it to add new chapters to the story of "Narcos"?

"It's incredibly stressful to change characters and setting. To abandon what people have grown to love.

But challenge is to raise the bar, culminating in our best season. "One of the reasons why we cast Luna and Pena was that we had an obligation to make most real and authentic version of the show on audience demand."

Newman came to India to promote the show with Pena and Luna.

Taking some time out, the team met the cast of hit show "Sacred Games" and explore Mumbai.

"I came to Mumbai in December last year for 'Bright'. I am inspired by the diversity here. It is a very global city. And the food is fantastic," he said.

(Sugandha Rawal is in Mumbai at the invitation of Netflix India. She can be contacted at sugandha.r@ians.in)

--IANS

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