From Daniel’s Death to Native Humor, ‘Reservation Dogs’ Showrunner Sterlin Harjo Answers Our Burning Questions

variety.com:

Kate Aurthur editorSterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi — the co-creators of “Reservation Dogs” — met in the mid-aughts, and though Harjo is from Oklahoma and Waititi grew up in New Zealand, they immediately bonded over their shared experiences as Indigenous filmmakers.

As Waititi’s star rose, the two remained friends, but “I never talked to him about work,” Harjo said. “I mean, enough people I think are trying to get stuff from Taika, so we just kept it as friendship.”That changed a few years ago, though, when Waititi mentioned to Harjo that he had an overall deal with FX, were Harjo to have any ideas for a show. “That’s sort of all I needed to hear,” Harjo said with a laugh during a video interview for Variety’s Showrunners Sitdown with Kate Aurthur presented by FX.

Their ideas for what would eventually be the series “Reservation Dogs,” which premiered on FX last August, were different, with Waititi wanting to create “more of a vigilante sort of like Batman” in the form of a Maori kid and Harjo leaning toward a “Stand by Me”-type about kids getting bullied. “We took these two ideas and just sort of shook them up,” Harjo said.“Reservation Dogs” is shot in Oklahoma, which Harjo insisted upon after FX had initially suggested it be produced out of New Mexico. “I told my agents that I didn’t want to do that — I wouldn’t want to do the show, or I would rewrite the show,” Harjo said. “And to everyone’s surprise, I said that.”There was a reason Harjo felt strongly about the setting, and not only because it’s where he grew up. “Whenever you’re making a show about Indigenous people, there’s so much history of land displacement,” he said. “We were brought here on the trail of tears from Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and we were.