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"Narcos," premiering across all Netflix territories on
Friday, explores the origins of Colombian drug lord Pablo
Escobar and the tense relationship between his Medellin cartel
and the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as
cocaine use became widespread among Americans in the 1980s.
While Escobar, who was killed in 1993, was known as one of the
drug world's wealthiest and ruthless criminals, "Narcos"
attempts to understand the man behind the myth and those who
strived to bring him down.
Blurring the lines between good and bad was easy enough, said
Brazilian director and producer Jose Padilha, because "all we
had to do was not pretend that the lines were there."
"We're not doing a movie where ... the bad guy is the guy who
produces drugs and the superhero is whomever represents the
American government, and the victim is the guy consuming drugs,"
Padilha said. "We didn't do this at all for the simple fact that
this is not even close to what the reality is."
To play Escobar, Brazilian actor Wagner Moura had to learn
Spanish in six months and prepared by reading as much as
possible on the drug lord as well as modern Colombian history.
"I was searching for this guy, I was trying to understand who he
was," Moura said.
He also observed other actors playing Escobar, such as Andres
Parra in Colombian TV show "Pablo Escobar, El Patron Del Mal,"
and Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro in this year's film
"Escobar: Paradise Lost."
"I recognize Pablo in all of those performances although they
are completely different," he said. "The way I see the character
was in how much I know about him."
The series also stars Boyd Holbrook and Pedro Pascal as DEA
agents Steve Murphy and Javier Pena, based on the real-life
agents leading the investigation on Escobar. Both Murphy and
Pena consulted with "Narcos" producers.
As Escobar's story is once again portrayed on screen, this time
with intricate depth, Padilha said that the issue of drugs is
something that unites much of the world.
"Drugs are part of social life," he said. "I don't think people
will ever get tired of drugs and shows about drugs."
(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant and
Christian Plumb)
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