John Leguizamo Starrer ‘The Green Veil’ Tells the Tale of Exploited Indigenous Families

The Network’s anthology series The Green Veil completed its eight-episode run on May 21, concluding Aram Rappaport’s dark drama that premiered on April 30.

To clarify the prevalent confusion online regarding whether The Green Veil is a film or not, The Green Veil is not a movie but a TV series. The show is based on a heavily researched script by Rappaport, and the story is told through the lens of 1950s FBI agent Gordon Rogers (John Leguizamo), who arrived in the U.S. as an immigrant to chase the proverbial American Dream but instead grows up to harsh realities that shape his life and career.

The show’s central theme revolves around an American government scheme to separate indigenous children from their families and then ensure the wards won’t inherit their land. Instead, the land was then handed over to oil corporations and large-scale companies, ensuring harassment and destruction of the indigenous families from both a personal and financial point of view. The plot of the series bears a close resemblance to Martin Scorcese’s 2023 film Killers of the Flower Moon.

The show stars Marco Torriani, Hani Furstenberg, Irene Bedard, John Ortiz, Isabelle Poloner, Steven Boyer, Anni Krueger, Kesia Elwin, and Nick Westrate in key roles, apart from Leguizamo portraying the lead character. Leguizamo also serves as the executive producer, along with writer-director Aram Rappaport.

Around the show’s premiere, Leguizamo spoke to Variety about his character in The Green Veil and how the audience might perceive him in a negative light, and why he doesn’t think that’s a bad thing:

“I don’t need people to like me in this role. That’s not what I want. I want it to be understood, understood how a person becomes this vile and twisted.” 

Selena Kuznikov/Variety

Leguizamo continued,

“[Rappaport] created this character for me, this self-hating Latin man, because we Latin people are now an important intersection where we’re accepting and embracing that we’re indigenous and our Afro-Latinidad just now, we’re starting to come to terms with that and loving it as opposed to running from it, hating ourselves, despising ourselves. That was from colonial times, but here we are back in the ’50s where this guy thinks if he can pass for white, if he is the best guy at his job, that they’re going to love him and accept him. And obviously, they don’t.”

Selena Kuznikov/Variety

The Green Veil is only available to stream on the streaming service The Network. The new streamer allows interested viewers to watch its content for free, and the service is only available in the U.S. In order to watch the show, users just need to sign up and create an account. They can also access the streamer via its app, which is available on the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, Roku Channel Store, and Fire TV.