There was not an empty seat in the house—the main theater of the Directors Guild of America—as cast, crew, supporters, friends and various industry-ites crowded in to see FX’s latest buzzworthy entry in hour-long drama at its Los Angeles premiere Monday night.
The elements include two cops from two countries and two vastly different cultures, and a prolific, mysterious killer responsible for a string of unsolved murders with a political agenda.
“The Bridge” stars Diane Kruger and Demián Bichir and premieres on FX Wednesday night at 10 p.m. With its flawed female lead character, it will surely be compared to “Homeland,” from which “The Bridge” is connected by way of executive producer Meredith Stiehm.
Stiehm, formerly an EP and writer on “Homeland,” adapted “The Bridge” for American television with writer/producer Elwood Reid. The present-day crime thriller is set on the US-Mexico border in El Paso/Juarez and is based on “Bron,” an international hit series that was set on the Sweden-Denmark border.
“Homeland’s” Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon were among those on hand to lend support to Stiehm’s new project. After the screening, the celebration moved on to Rick Bayless’ acclaimed Mexican restaurant, Red O, where the jalapeno margaritas were flowing for an overflow crowd.
But back to the show. No spoilers here, but the first episode kicks off with a dramatic power outage at the border crossing known as the Bridge of the Americas and then the revelation of a gruesome crime involving an anti-immigration judge, and an apparent contamination of the crime scene. These elements lead Kruger’s character, El Paso police detective Sonya Cross to cross swords and badges with her counterpart from the Chihuahua state police, Bichir’s Marco Ruiz.
“The Bridge” takes viewers on a journey that illuminates not only the cultural differences of law enforcement entities, but reveals the challenges each faces investigating a multifaceted case on both sides of the border that pulls them into a milieu of illegal immigration, prostitution, drug trafficking and an avalanche of violence against young women, based on real events.
For Kruger, who has starred in films including “Troy” and “Inglorious Basterds,” the complexity of Cross’s character is what drew her to her first television series lead role. Cross has Asperger’s syndrome, which fuels her candid and sometimes off-putting personality as she strives for the truth while strictly obeying police protocol.
“I had never really had a desire to play a cop. I’m not really the gun-toting type of person,” says Kruger. “Sonya’s character is just so different and cool and a real challenge, because Asperger’s is much more subtle than a severe version or a case of autism. That’s what drew me initially to the project because yes, she has this condition yet she is so different in her job because she has this ability to focus and to really look at things from a different point of view, and that was really interesting to me.”
She says everything about Asperger’s was new to her and she did research that made her realize how daunting the challenge was. The network hired someone with the syndrome to work with her, which she says, has been key to her performance.
“He’s on the set every day when I work, and I’ve spent more time with him in the past four months than I have with my partner, because I have so many questions and I’m just observing him,” says Kruger. “I’m also asking him some pretty uncomfortable questions. And his willingness to be my partner in this has made a big difference. I sleep easier at night knowing that he watches over everything I do.”
Still, the producers decided early on that Sonya’s condition would not be labeled because they didn’t want it to be her defining character trait.
“I think that was so brave because [in the first episode] she’s so odd that you really don’t know what it is that’s off,” Kruger says. “I think it will be great for the next 13 episodes to get to see her nuance and her layers and to understand a lot of her back story that has made her the person she is today.”
Bichir’s character Ruiz, who must navigate the slippery slope of Mexican police politics and practices, is compelling in his own right. As the series opens, he has recently undergone a vasectomy and is in pain, to the point where he has trouble sitting down, much to Cross’s annoyance–which she makes clear in no uncertain terms.
With subplots involving Ruiz’s family, including a son who is being wooed into the drug trade, a wealthy rancher’s widow pulled into intrigue about his past dealings and a cub reporter out to make a name for herself with an investigative report on anchor babies, not to mention the evilly charismatic killer, viewers will have no trouble sitting down for “The Bridge.”
Later this summer, the series will be dubbed in Spanish and aired on MundoFox.
