ERIC DEGGANS, HOST:
Netflix on Thursday debuts "American Primeval," a drama set in Utah in 1857 about the tough, often violent struggle for control of the land in the American West.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "AMERICAN PRIMEVAL")
JOE TIPPETT: (As James Wolsey) If these natives here don't murder you, you got the Wasatch Mountain Range, grizzlies, wolves, riled-up Mormons.
ALEX BREAUX: (As Wild Bill Hickman) We are the chosen.
DEGGANS: The series stars Taylor Kitsch and Betty Gilpin. Here to discuss it is director and executive producer Peter Berg, who some fans might recognize as the director/producer behind films and TV shows like "Friday Night Lights" and "Deepwater Horizon." Peter, thanks so much for joining us.
PETER BERG: My pleasure.
DEGGANS: So this is a gritty, explicitly visceral story about this chaotic frontier where Native Americans and Mormons and other kinds of white settlers are coming together and clashing, often in bloody ways. Why did you decide to tell this story and tell it in this way?
BERG: So, I mean, I think the origin for me in wanting to do a period piece set in at this particular time was really spawned when I saw film as a kid that Robert Redford did called "Jeremiah Johnson," where he played a frontiersman.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "JEREMIAH JOHNSON")
STEFAN GIERASCH: (As Del Gue) Which way you headed, Jeremiah?
ROBERT REDFORD: (As Jeremiah Johnson) Canada, maybe. I hear there's land there man has never seen.
BERG: I don't think there are much similarities between certainly "American Primeval" and many Westerns as we know them to be. You know, we don't have saloons and sheriffs walking through main streets.
DEGGANS: Right.
BERG: We don't really have streets in our show. It's a different experience.
DEGGANS: I wanted to talk about Betty Gilpin's character - this mom who is on the run from some nastiness that had happened back east. She comes to this land with her son, and she teams with this damaged loner, who's played by Taylor Kitsch, who can help her get to this other town that she's trying to get to. And I was wondering - that human connection, is that why you chose to make that story one of the main stories in the series?
BERG: Yes, for sure. And I think that the idea of a woman trying to get through extremely treacherous, primitive land where there are ways to die every 15 feet - you know, going to the bathroom can be a lethal experience in "American Primeval." And the idea that we were going to present this very violent environment, you know, that was a given. But we all felt that what would make it much easier for an audience to find an empathetic endpoint would be through Betty's character, Sara and Taylor's character, Isaac to form not necessarily a romantic love story, but a human love story. You know, the love of one human being to another and the care and the compassion and the desire to protect. We all felt that everyone's breath would quite simply be too bad for them to kiss at any one point in time.
(LAUGHTER)
BERG: The idea of a romantic love story felt implausible just based upon hygiene alone.
DEGGANS: There you go. There you go. Well, now, this story also sets up Mormon leader Brigham Young, who's played by Kim Coates, as this sort of ruthless theocrat. You know, he's willing to order murderers to achieve what he wants, particularly control of this land. Was there any concern about setting up a religious leader as the heavy in this story?
BERG: Well, the more we studied the birth of the Mormon religion in upstate New York, and they were, you know, persecuted in New York, in Georgia, and then in Illinois, where Joseph Smith was eventually murdered, and then just sort of realized that Brigham Young picked up the mantle for Joseph Smith and took several thousand Mormons on foot across the Plains into Salt Lake looking for a place to survive. He felt that no one would ever come after him there and that they would finally be safe, and sure enough, they did start coming and the military started coming. Brigham Young is really fascinating, you know, what he was able to do. And keeping that religion alive is, you know, in many ways, I think, impressive.
DEGGANS: So you talk about the Mormons sort of coming to this area and thinking no one would follow them there. Well, there were already some people there - Native Americans. And whenever I look at Westerns, I always think that the question that is particularly difficult for modern Westerns is how to talk about Native Americans.
BERG: Yes. The two main tribes there were Shoshone and Paiute tribes. And we did tremendous amount of research on those tribes and hired multiple consultants from those tribes to help us in the writing and then in the production. It was exactly, as you say, another case of white settlers moving in on this land, squeezing these tribes out, which is exactly what happened. That is part of the story that we tell.
One thing that I like to say about "American Primeval," and we talked about it early on in the rehearsal process with the actors, is that from the moment the show starts, every single character - and there's a lot of them - are in a really tight spot. Everyone's sort of got at least one major problem and a couple of supporting problems, right?
DEGGANS: Right.
BERG: Nobody is chill. There's very little chill...
DEGGANS: Yeah, no chill. No chill.
BERG: ...In "American Primeval," right?
DEGGANS: Now, you know, Hollywood has obviously faced a lot of challenges over this past year, and we're about to start a new one. And as an experienced director and producer, I'm wondering, where do you think things are headed for Hollywood in the new year? Are you optimistic? Do you think things might get better than what we've seen before?
BERG: I am optimistic. People are going to see films. There are a lot of great films this year that I think are just extraordinary and are representative of a really robust, creative moment that I see happening in the film business, in movie theaters. Netflix, for better or worse, if you look at their stock price, they're doing really well. And they're...
DEGGANS: That is true.
BERG: They're spending a lot of money making a lot of shows. We're doing "Friday Night Lights" again on Peacock, which I'm excited about. There's lots of opportunities out there for filmmakers.
DEGGANS: And I think the "Friday Night Lights" fans would kill me if I didn't ask this extra little question. Can you tell us anything about the new version of "Friday Night Lights" that you're working on?
BERG: Well, it's something that I'm doing with Brian Grazer and Jason Katims, and that's the original creative team behind the series. It's going to be a complete reinvention - new characters. Texas high school football will be featured, but it's, you know, 2025, trying to reinvent it. So sort of recognizing that Coach Taylor is a very iconic character, and so is Tim Riggins, and we're not going to try and compare or compete with what we've done. But see if we can't find a new way in.
DEGGANS: Wow. Well, clear eyes, full heart, can't lose.
BERG: That's so true.
DEGGANS: Sounds like a motto that still holds up. That is Peter Berg, who directed and produced "Friday Night Lights," but he also is the director and producer on "American Primeval" on Netflix. That's what he's been talking with us about today. Peter, thank you so much for speaking with us.
BERG: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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