“I consider myself responsible for the universe of bastards,” writer Chris Brancato said with a laugh last week while having coffee. “Any criminal group of any kind that emerges from New York is an easy target for me to try to fictionalize.”
Strictly speaking, he was falling short. Over the past few decades, their bastards have also come from Medellín, Colombia (“Narcos”); Guadalajara, Mexico (“Narcos: Mexico”); and Miami (“Hotel Cocaine”), among other places. (It wasn't the inevitable path for someone whose first writing credit came on “Beverly Hills, 90210.”)
Brancato’s latest series, “The Westies,” which premiered Sunday on MGM+, better fits his description. A quasi-extension of the historical fiction series “The Godfather of Harlem,” which he co-created and supervised for MGM+, it focuses on the western Manhattan neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, where the small but brutal Irish gang of the title has enormous influence.
The series, created by Brancato and Michael Panes, begins in 1980 as a massive new development project, the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, is underway, funneling hundreds of millions of skimmed dollars into the neighborhood. Outnumbered and disciplined by the Italian mafia, the Westies, led by the unflappable Eamon Sweeney (JK Simmons), nevertheless have their fingers in every local pot, forcing the Italians, including a young and ambitious John Gotti (Hamish Allan-Headley), to form an uneasy and unstable alliance with the Irish.
“The Irish of that era, in the '70s and '80s, were known for scams involving construction, bid rigging and no-show jobs,” Brancato said. For starters, the Irish controlled some of the local unions.
“The Italians knew that this project was being built directly on Irish territory,” he added. “They weren't going to be able to just kick them out.”
However, the association was far from being ordered, especially taking into account the rebellion of Westerners, who forced the definition of “organized crime.” Complicating matters are Harlem drug lords, South American cocaine traffickers, and Provisional Irish Republican Army arms smugglers. (The early 1980s were bloody years in the conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles).
Then there's law enforcement, which includes an FBI task force and a dirty Irish cop played by Titus Welliver, who is forced to regain a long-dormant conscience.
Brancato, 63, who oversees the series, spoke at a cafe in Manhattan's West Village about the show's origins, his enduring fascination with criminal empires and why it was even harder than most criminals to turn the Westies into likable characters. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
I've read that “The Westies” has its origins in “The Godfather of Harlem.” How are the two related?
“The Westies” came about because in “Godfather of Harlem” I'm always looking for a New York-based criminal group to take on Forest Whitaker's character, Bumpy Johnson. So I told him [Michael Wright, the head of MGM+]”Hey, for season four, I'm thinking about the '60s Westies taking on Bumpy.” And he said, “Oh, man. I'd do a whole show on the Westies.” When someone who runs a channel says to you, “Oh, I'd make a whole show about that,” you say, “Yes, sir.”
Good. “Let me start writing.”
“Let me get on with that.”
Are you ultimately creating a sort of violent historical crime verse for MGM+, with crossover fictional characters and things like that?
[Laughs.] I love that analogy. It's kind of like the Marvel universe.
But with some different challenges…
In reality, the Westies were actually a group of extremely violent, whiskey-soaked criminals who, in my opinion, don't have many redeeming qualities. And one of the tasks in writing a crime show is to create a character or characters with a point of view that the audience supports above all others. Basically, the public has to excuse his violence. Otherwise, we won't like them and won't want to see them.
So how did you try to humanize the Westies?
It was about creating a generational divide within the Westies to create drama internally. But he was also creating conflict with the Gambino family, for whom they nominally work as partners. We make the Italians worse than the Irish in terms of greed and criminality, so when you're looking at the whole thing, you're like, “Oh, I hope the Westies end up on top here.”
Why ask people to support criminals in the first place?
I grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, I'm a suburban kid, and I have very little connection to the crime I write about. But those are the shows that I always loved watching and I think we all like to watch them for different reasons. One of them is that it's fun to see people willing to cross social boundaries that we wouldn't cross ourselves. So there is a voyeuristic aspect to watching crime unfold.
The industry has changed a lot lately. How do you know a program is worth following long-term when you're up against the algorithm?
I try not to think about those things too much. It's more when I mention to people, “Here's the show I'm working on.” [what is] Your initial reaction? With “The Westies,” it's strange: When I described it at the beginning, I said, “It's the American 'Peaky Blinders.'” And I was surprised to see how many people, if they hadn't heard of the Westies, were interested in this Irish gang in New York. Or if they had Having heard of the Westies, they were interested in seeing them represented.
Historically, weren't they very small?
In reality, the Westies were just about 20 guys: this small group that had enormous influence in the New York criminal world for a couple of different reasons. First, they were incredibly brutal. The Italians would want someone to knock, but they wouldn't want him to come back to their door, so they would hire the Westies to do the knocking. And the Westies were also experts because some of them worked in the butcher trade. They were experts in disappearing bodies.
That makes sense given the way we see a guy get cut, but I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll leave it there.
[Laughs.] Yeah, we had a little fun with that aspect: the rubber dolls and the arm cuts.
So, after all, we are not asked to completely excuse violence. We like it too, don't we?
Yes, I think it's human nature. We have violence within us, whether we express it or not, and that's why it's sometimes nice to see it unfold.
It also applies to the transgression you mentioned. We've all been stuck at an intersection and wanted to punch someone. So when a man actually does it, there's something satisfying about it.
Yes, there is. In a way, the characters are acting out our own inner fantasies and we would like to be tough and not allow social restrictions to bind us.
