‘Dark Winds’ star McClarnon: ‘Finally able to tell our own stories’

The second season of crime drama “Dark Winds” will be slighter lighter in tone, series star Zahn McClarnon said.

“There’s a bit more levity between [my character, Joe Leaphorn] and Jim Chee [which] I think is fun to explore, their father/son kind of relationship, the teasing,” McClarnon, 56, told The Post. 

Premiering July 27 on AMC+ (and July 30 at 9 p.m. on AMC), the series, set on a Navajo reservation in the 1970s, is executive-produced by “Game of Thrones” author George R.R. Martin and Robert Redford. 

“I saw George quite a bit. He’d come up to the set [in Santa Fe, NM]. We also had quite a few dinners together,” McClarnon said. “Bob [Redford] got up to the set a few times and said hello to everybody. I spoke to him on the phone a few times, and we had a couple dinners. But he’s getting up there in age [at 86]. It’s kind of hard for him to get around these days.” 

The inaugural season of “Dark Winds,” based on a series of novels called “Leaphorn & Chee,” the drew 2.2 million viewers — a record for AMC+. 

The series follows Navajo tribal policemen Joe Leaphorn (McClarnon) and Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon, “Twilight”) as they investigate crimes on their reservation — including grisly murder. The story also includes serious topics including the forced sterilization of Indigenous women. At the end of Season 1, it was revealed that Chee was an undercover FBI agent; Season 2 begins with Chee now working as a private investigator, while Leaphorn is working on a case involving a sociopath (Nicholas Logan). But the two men cross paths again before too long.

“Does Jim Chee replace Joe’s [deceased] son? Is that why Joe likes Jim so much? We don’t know.,” McClarnon said. “We’ll have to find out.

“But Kiowa Gordon, who plays Chee, is such a lighthearted guy,” he said. “He brings positive energy to the set. I walk around as Joe Leaphorn and I’m usually pretty into myself and quiet. It’s exciting when Kiowa comes on set. He makes everybody laugh. It makes it easier for me to work, that’s for sure.” 

Although his “Dark Winds” character is Navajo, McClarnon himself is Lakota. 

“We had a great cultural advisor from the Navajo nation. I grew up within the Native communities. Obviously there are different tribes, and different cultures within those tribes,” he said. “But there are universals — humor within our community, the matriarchal society. So my whole life was kind of a road map, and a study of Native community.”

McClarnon is one of the most prolific Native actors. He’s starred in “Fargo,” “Westworld,” “Longmir,” and  the FX comedy “Reservation Dogs.” 

“There has been quite a bit of change [in the industry], but I think we [Native Americans] have a long way to go,” he said.  “I would like to see more Native Americans within more of the studios, more of the producers, and so on. But we’ve got a few [and] things are moving along. 

“We’re finally writing our own stuff, and have crews that are all Native, casts that are all native,” he said. “We’re finally able to tell our own stories.” 

This interview was done prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike.