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" On the set of The Bridge in Santa Clarita, California, outside showrunner Elwood Reid&amp;#039;s office, there&amp;#039;s a small shelf of books with a sign-out sheet. The shelf is stacked with everything from Roberto Bola\u00F1o&amp;#039;s epic and critically revered novel 2666 to Charles Bowden&amp;#039;s journalistic border investigation Murder City to Flannery O&amp;#039;Connor&amp;#039;s short story collection A Good Man Is Hard to Find. There are several tomes centered on Asperger&amp;#039;s syndrome, including two copies of John Elder Robison&amp;#039;s Raising Cubby. There is a sense of nebulous connectivity to the titles, but it&amp;#039;s a cohesion only understood by anyone who watched The Bridge&amp;#039;s first season, which aired last summer on FX.  The series, based on a Scandinavian TV show of the same name, earned acclaim for its gritty portrayal of the border between El Paso and Ju\u00E1rez, Mexico, the tenuous national relationship mirrored by the partnership of Texas detective Sonya Cross (Diane Kruger) and Chihuahua detective Marco Ruiz (Demian Bichir). The first season trailed a serial killer, tying in various related storylines to offer an overwhelming vision of life and crime on both sides of the border, which is connected by the titular bridge. The blunt-spoken Sonya suffers from Asperger&amp;#039;s, although it is never definitively stated within the narrative, hence the copies of Robison&amp;#039;s famous book on autism here outside Reid&amp;#039;s office. &amp;quot;I think the show has that novelistic scope to it,&amp;quot; says Reid, a novelist himself who is presently writing his next book. &amp;quot;When I talk in the writer&amp;#039;s room I mostly talk about fictional characters. I don&amp;#039;t talk about TV a lot. I tend to talk about movies or books. When we&amp;#039;re talking about tone or character, Flannery O&amp;#039;Connor comes up a lot. Just that realistic, gothic tone I&amp;#039;m always going for on the show, with some pulp added to it. I&amp;#039;m always referencing books.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;I couldn&amp;#039;t get anyone to read Roberto Bola\u00F1o.&amp;quot; \u2014Showrunner Elwood Reid The shelf is for the writers and actors themselves, both to reference Reid&amp;#039;s influences and to learn more about the world he&amp;#039;s trying to create within the series, which premieres its 13-episode second season tonight. Sometimes it works and sometimes the books go unread, particularly Bola\u00F1o&amp;#039;s massive tome, which includes a fictionalized section on the murders in Ju\u00E1rez (&amp;quot;The Part About the Crimes&amp;quot;). &amp;quot;I read the book before I did the show,&amp;quot; Reid says. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a strange book. But I don&amp;#039;t think I got any of my writers to read the book yet. Probably more Murder City. Everyone read that one. I couldn&amp;#039;t get anyone to read Roberto Bola\u00F1o.&amp;quot;   Reid&amp;#039;s office is only a small part of the set, which is located in an office and warehouse park in Santa Clarita, a suburban town located just north of Los Angeles. The Bridge moved into this location from a smaller one after the first season and built out many of the sets that were temporary before, including the apartment of Daniel Frye, a journalist played by Matthew Lillard. Seeing the sets up close diminishes much of their onscreen power, particularly when you realize that the dank, expansive tunnel used for drug smuggling in season one is actually about ten feet long and sitting in a sound stage. There are piles of street signs lying around the sets, which production uses to cover actual signs when they go out on location around Southern California. &amp;quot;We try to be as accurate as possible,&amp;quot; Geanina Vasilescu, the show&amp;#039;s art director, says as we walk around the set. &amp;quot;Even for El Paso, some street signs are different than California. Last year we had to cover all the red curbs because they don&amp;#039;t have them in Mexico. That was a little bit of a challenge.&amp;quot; But details are important, both for accuracy and for the narrative. &amp;quot;It helps remind the audience where we are,&amp;quot; Vasilescu adds.  Ju\u00E1rez, as it&amp;#039;s depicted on the show, is close to reality \u2014 at least as much as can possibly be recreated outside the place itself. Massive graffiti murals are stacked around the sound stage to double for actual murals on the city&amp;#039;s streets and almost no digital replication is used. Marco&amp;#039;s bachelor apartment, a set newly created for season two, is located here on the stage, and the vast glimmer of Ju\u00E1rez outside his balcony is actually a massive photograph that can be lit according to the time of day. Despite these filmic tricks, there is a strong sensibility of truth and realism on The Bridge, a desire to capture the broken-down, crime-filled border between our country and Mexico. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m from Cleveland, and Ju\u00E1rez reminds me of a working-class town,&amp;quot; says Reid, who has visited Mexico several times for research on the show. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s really big and sprawling. Whereas El Paso looks like Valencia, California, and it&amp;#039;s very clean and antiseptic. Ju\u00E1rez is just dirty and all over the place, with beauty in some places. I liked it down there. I didn&amp;#039;t feel unsafe down there, but I understood how something could happen.&amp;quot;  Bichir, who originally hails from Mexico City, has found the show&amp;#039;s portrayal of the border compelling for its objectivity. The series, in fact, won a Peabody Award in May for its examination of border issues. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve been brave enough to be straightforward,&amp;quot; Bichir says. &amp;quot;Instead of making one country good and the other country bad, we talk of the responsibility we share on every issue. In season one, when we talked about drug trafficking or human trafficking or weapons going back and forth, we talked about the problems on both sides of the border. How much everyone has their own responsibility in that. And when we talk about violence, it&amp;#039;s about both countries.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Everyone keeps asking, &amp;#039;Oh, Mexico is really dangerous, right?&amp;#039;... I keep thinking that up until now no one in Mexico has entered a movie theater and killed people.&amp;quot; \u2014Demian Bichir For the actor, this show&amp;#039;s narrative elements are an opportunity to explore whether the American perception of Mexico is accurate. &amp;quot;Everyone keeps asking, &amp;#039;Oh, Mexico is really dangerous, right?&amp;#039;&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;Everyone keeps talking about the violence and how dangerous this is, and I always keep thinking that up until now no one in Mexico has entered a movie theater and killed people. Up until now no one has entered an elementary school anywhere in Mexico and killed the kids. So I really don&amp;#039;t know which place is more dangerous.&amp;quot;    Season two of The Bridge veers away from the first season&amp;#039;s reliance on adapting the original version, a Danish/Swedish co-production. It unveils new issues and new criminals, which include Franka Potente as a Mennonite woman named Eleanor Nacht who harbors questionable motives. The series was met with some criticism last year for its overreliance on the serial-killer arc, which the writers wrapped up two episodes prior to the finale to help set up new storylines. This season Marco, still grappling with the death of his son last season, is threatened within his own police department while Sonya finds herself dealing with more significant personal issues as she continues her investigative work. &amp;quot;This year there&amp;#039;s lots of killers and lots of murders and the story is more complex,&amp;quot; Kruger says. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re not trying to find one person the entire show. Sonya&amp;#039;s personal life is a big part of this season and it&amp;#039;s a very dark time for her. All the characters are being explored more and the scenes are more demanding because of it.&amp;quot;  Lillard, who is only onset today because he&amp;#039;s been shadowing the director in hopes of helming an episode himself in the possible third season, transitioned from recurring guest star to cast member alongside Emily Rios, who plays his journalist partner Adriana Mendez. For the actor, this season is more exciting because it&amp;#039;s allowed him to more fully develop Daniel as a conflicted human who is more integral to the plot.  &amp;quot;The first couple episodes, everything comes out like &amp;#039;Bam!&amp;#039; As the show goes and patience prevails, all these stories start to intertwine. We become key elements.&amp;quot; \u2014Matthew Lillard &amp;quot;We grow as characters on the TV show based on the fact that we&amp;#039;ve become relevant elements to solve riddles that are presented to the lead characters,&amp;quot; Lillard says. &amp;quot;This season is a big shotgun blast of stories. The first couple episodes, everything comes out like &amp;#039;Bam!&amp;#039; As the show goes and patience prevails, all these stories start to intertwine. We become key elements of bringing some of those things together.&amp;quot;  This is a big deal for Lillard, as Daniel Frye was meant to die off last season \u2014 twice. In the original series, the character is murdered in episode six, but Reid and the writers decided to keep him around at least until episode ten. &amp;quot;They gave me a script for episode ten that had me dead,&amp;quot; Lillard says of season one. &amp;quot;But why kill something that&amp;#039;s good? The only reason they were killing me is because it was based on a Swedish show that we knew the second season was going to divert from anyway.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Wait until you see what [Franka Potente] does this season.&amp;quot; \u2014Showrunner Elwood Reid &amp;quot;I feel like actors are like really good athletes \u2014 if you trade them before they&amp;#039;re done someone else is going to get them,&amp;quot; Reid says. &amp;quot;Why would I give someone like that away? It&amp;#039;s the same with Franka Potente. Wait until you see what she does this season. Actors, I think, make a case for themselves. If you write something and they suck, you cut the part down. The minute I had her, I was like, &amp;#039;Oh my God,&amp;#039; and I could just see her role on the show expanding.&amp;quot;    Today Bichir and Kruger are shooting scenes for the tenth episode of season two, and although none of their three scenes seems pivotal in terms of the plot, it might be spoiler-ish to reveal their exact nature. The crew transitions quickly from scene to scene, and stand-ins are used to set up the cameras and lighting before the actors actually come into the sets. There is a palpable feeling of camaraderie among everyone present. Diane Kruger never saw her career going somewhere like this show. But the actress says female movie roles are &amp;quot;pretty dire right now.&amp;quot; All the actors refer to this season as &amp;quot;darker,&amp;quot; although it&amp;#039;s subjective what that means exactly for each of them and their character work. Kruger, who calls Reid a &amp;quot;sick-minded writer and person,&amp;quot; never saw her career going somewhere like this show. But the actress says female movie roles are &amp;quot;pretty dire right now,&amp;quot; and she&amp;#039;s found The Bridge to be a valuable landscape to uncover what it means to play a complex woman onscreen. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d never dreamt of being a cop on TV,&amp;quot; Kruger admits. &amp;quot;But I liked the darkness, I liked the mood, I liked the world. The Mexican-American border stories are so interesting. I live here so it&amp;#039;s something I feel concerned about and read about. It&amp;#039;s something I&amp;#039;ve never seen on television.&amp;quot; She adds later, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m very proud of the show this year. What I&amp;#039;ve seen is certainly the show I hoped it could be.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;There are showrunners who are obsessed with actors saying exactly what they write verbatim, and I think there&amp;#039;s freedom on this show to advocate for your own character and to bring value,&amp;quot; Lillard says. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re valued here. As an actor, that&amp;#039;s all you want. We don&amp;#039;t make as much money as other people, but we get to put words in our mouths that are better than 99 percent of what&amp;#039;s on TV. That&amp;#039;s a good place to be.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Until the reviews come out and people watch, I have no clue [what&amp;#039;ll happen]. It&amp;#039;s a big departure from last year.&amp;quot; \u2014Showrunner Elwood Reid The Bridge has yet to be picked up for season three, although the cast is hopeful, particularly in light of their Peabody Award. Reid refuses to predict its fate, but he imagines the pieces are in place to create a lasting, meaningful series that explores tangibly real political and social issues through the lens of violence acts. &amp;quot;I would hope,&amp;quot; the showrunner says, shrugging. &amp;quot;Until the reviews come out and people watch, I have no clue. It&amp;#039;s a big departure from last year.&amp;quot; But departures, as those who cross the bridge&amp;#039;s border know, are usually just the beginning of a much longer journey. &amp;quot;The show is no longer following protocol,&amp;quot; Lillard says. &amp;quot;And that&amp;#039;s a good thing.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a23733/the-bridge-season-2-set/>