Oscar-nominated Mexican actor Demian Bichir appeared on last night's episode of The Bridge (FX) with a familiar homie by his side — his offscreen brother Bruno Bichir, who joins the Peabody Award-winning cast as a guest star.

In America, the 50-year-old Demian Bichir is well-known for his recurring role in Weeds as Esteban Reyes — politician, narco-trafficker, and baby-daddy to Mary Louise Parker. His skill as a dramatic actor was first showcased broadly to American audiences in the movie A Better Life, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. It's a heart-tugging piece about a luckless undocumented Mexican gardener trying to raise his teenage son in Los Angeles.

In Mexico, Demian is well-known as the eldest son of that country's first family of entertainment. His father, Alejandro Bichir, is a respected actor/director; his mother is the movie and telenovela actress Maricruz Nájera. Demian began his acting career at 14. His brothers, Bruno (younger) and Odiseo (older), are also actors. So prolific is the family that the Mexican edition of the MTV Movie Awards created a special category: Mejor Bichir en una Película (Best Bichir in a Movie). Demian earned his Best Bichir for the 2003 film Bendito Infierno, in which he co-starred with Penélope Cruz and Gael García Bernal. (He got his start in American films in 2001, playing opposite Salma Hayek in In the Time of the Butterflies. Later he'd gain 30 pounds to play Fidel Castro in Steven Soderbergh's Che.)

For the uninitiated, The Bridge is a crime procedural set on the U.S.-Mexico border. It begins with the discovery of the body of an American judge on the bridge connecting El Paso, Texas, and Juárez, Mexico. As it happens, the body is gruesomely cut in half and left straddling the exact line of transition between the countries, a challenge to both nations by the evil perp, who is believed to be a serial killer of women, most of them workers in maquiladoras south of the border. To investigate, an El Paso police detective (Diane Kruger) is paired with a Mexican counterpart from the Chihuahua state police, played by Demian Bichir.

Kruger's character takes a bit of getting used to — following the plot point of the Danish show from which The Bridge is adapted, the former model and muse of designer Karl Lagerfeld, who has since become a credible actress, plays a cop who suffers with Asperger's syndrome. It is a tribute that the former Helen of Troyhas managed to construct a credible character under such constraints.But the show features good writing, a unique and picaresque setting, and documentary-rich cinematography. All in all, though, it is Demian's fresh portrayal of Detective Marco Ruiz (in Spanish it's pronounced de-tek-tee-veh) that anchors the show.

Going back to Dragnet's Joe Friday, the TV detective has become standard fare, an overcrowded field of memorable and unmemorable portrayals. Hardened. Alcoholic. Emotionally shut-down. Womanizing. Quippingly macho. Laughably terse. Even True Detective's highly lauded pair, Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, are rather two-dimentional.

In The Bridge, Bichir's cop is distinctly human and nuanced — a good man at heart who is willing to veer into the dark if he feels a higher justice is being served. He's that guy who knows which rules are meaningful and which ones need to be broken. (Of course, as with all handsome detectives, one of his problems is keeping his dick in his pants.) The season-one episode featuring (spoiler alert) the demise of his college-age son still haunts me.

Over drinks at the bar at L'Ermitage in Beverly Hills, California, Demian is charming with the waiters and flirtatious with the waitresses, maybe like a younger version of Dos Equis's Most Interesting Man in the World. He arrives first, wearing a warm-up jacket, with his phone to his ear, making plans for later with "a very hot lady." Ordering something non-alcoholic, he cites as influences cops played by Al Pacino, by Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman in Seven, and by Gene Hackman in The French Connection.

"What I liked about this guy [Ruiz] is that he's like any other human being. What really got me from the pilot is that we saw his personal life. After all, he shows up in the first episode having just had a vasectomy, with swollen balls. And then you see this guy who is transiting not only between two cities and two countries, but he's also transiting constantly between heaven and hell."

Right about here, Bruno arrives. With his rounded glasses and moustache/beard, he looks more the studious type than his leading-man brother, who is four years his senior. Bruno is respected at home for his work in Mexican film, telenovelas, and theater. For an extended stint, he appeared as the Joel Grey character in a Mexican stage version of Cabaret. Bruno's English is not quite as proficient as that of his brother, whose early jobs in America included employment at the Rosa Mexicano restaurant in New York City. As with most actors taking a role in television, Bruno has no idea where his character on The Bridge is going. All he knows for now is that he's playing a wealthy Mexican business leader who becomes involved with Demian's detective.

"We work together many times in the past in films and theater, but this is the first time we do TV together," Bruno says. "It's always a joy to work with your own blood. When we work together, when my father works with us, that's such joy, it's so beautiful, you know?"

"Growing up in Mexico, playing soccer in our little neighborhood, without speaking a word of English, we never thought things like this were gonna happen," Demian says. He cocks his head and shrugs, not displeased.

"America's a great place," Bruno says, ordering an artisian ale.

Mike Sager Mike Sager is a bestselling author and award-winning reporter who's been a contributor to Esquire for thirty years.

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