Netflix’s ‘Narcos’ Series Premieres: Stars Wagner Moura And Ana De La Reguera Talk About Colombia’s Drug War

Netflix’s Narcos series premiered on Friday, and the first buzz is that it’s gripping and beautifully shot. Narcos’ subject is the drug cartels’ reign of terror in Colombia. The Netflix drama portrays the rise of Colombia’s drug lord Pablo Escobar in the 1970’s and 80’s, and the fight of the government and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to stop him.

The fast-moving adventure story Narcos arrives just in time for week-end binge watching. The Netflix series stars Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar and Ana de la Reguera as Elisa, a notorious guerilla group’s co-leader. Narcos actors Boyd Holbrook and Pedro Pascal play the two DEA agents who were sent to track down and disable the drug kingpin. Co-created by José Padilha and Eric Newman, Netflix’s Narcos has 10 episodes that cover the period from Chile in the 1970’s to Colombia and the U.S. decades later.

Ana de la Reguera spoke with Fox News Latino about why Netflix’s Narcos is so powerful.

“The amazing (thing) about the show, and it’s the reason that I love it, is that it has different [points] of views – from the guerillas, from the political side, from the narcos, from the Americans, from the civilians – so you get the whole picture. You are going to learn about why this happened, why the [phenomenon] happened in Colombia in the late 1970s, beginning of the 80s.”

Drug kingpin Escobar became a billionaire and was listed in Forbes as one of the world’s richest men. He finally was shot to death on a rooftop in Medellín. To some Colombians, he had a reputation as a Robin Hood figure. He was a brutal killer who assassinated presidential candidates and blew up a commercial airline flight, killing 110 innocent people. In Medellín today, tourists can take a tour of places where Pablo Escobar hung out.

The Netflix series Narcos is based on the real agents’ stories. The two actual DEA agents, Steve Murphy and Javier Peña, who are portrayed in Narcos by Boyd Holbrook and Pedro Pascal, served as consultants to the project. The Netflix series doesn’t make a hero out of Escobar, whom Peña describes.

“It’s really a story about how one man could challenge his own country and actually win until a group of dedicated Colombian and US police officers disregarded their own safety to try and bring the cartel down. But it’s more than that – Escobar’s story remains interesting because of what we’re seeing in Mexico right now.”

According to The Guardian, Narcosmixes real news footage from the period into the dramatic scenes very effectively. This works in the Netflix drama because Brazilian actor Wagner Moura looks so much like Pablo Escobar.

Moura, who prepped for his Narcos role by reading everything he could find about Escobar, spoke with Rolling Stone about Narcos.

“Netflix never wanted to make this show about good American cops that go to a third-world country to save poor people from a bad guy. This concept of [who is] good and who is bad is always being played with.”

Netflix’s Narcos retells the story of a harrowing time for Colombia, when Pablo Escobar and the drug cartels threatened the country with out-of-control violence.

[Image credited to Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images]