Filming a TV series in Mexico is not all margarita ville. Forget beautiful brunette senoritas, think blonde scorpions.

Sweating Bullets, a 13-part series due to debut on CBS on Jan. 21 and on a yet unspecified date on Global TV, is being shot on location here. It's the first Canadian-Mexican co-production, produced by Accent Entertainment and Flores-Rofnel-Senyal in association with PGI and Global.

This day's location is a beach 16 kilometers from Puerto Vallarta --- to avoid the mountains. The series is supposed to be set in Key Mariah, in the Florida Keys, paradise for underworld crime figures seeking haven.

When we arrive on set, everyone is sitting on top of picnic tables.

"Don't come here, there are blonde scorpions afoot." we are warned by one of the Mexican crew members.

"What do you do if you're bitten?" I ask.

"Go to the hospital or die."

Now I'm sweating bullets.

We head for the beach. Legions of tanned blonde extras in the briefest of neon bikinis are playing volleyball. It looks more like Santa Monica Beach than Mexico.

One of the male extras, a Jamaican entertainer with the improbable name of Tony Banana, is a big hit with the girls. An extra in the skimpiest bikini drapes herself around him. Hey, it's his birthday.

It's the tropical Heat bar, after all, where "If you can name it, we can make it."

There are Canadians in the leads. Rob Stewart plays Nick Slaughter, former agent for both the RCMP and the Drug Enforcement Agency in the U.S. turned private eye.

His business partner, chic fish out of water, Sylvie Girard, is played by Carolyn Dunn.

Stewart does most of his own stunts. He has even been doing his own artwork, drawing the face of his alter ego, Mr. Knuckles, on his fingers. Think Senor Wences of Key Mariah.

"Mr. Knuckles is my misanthropic alter ego," he laughs. "He talks to me and it requires a suspension of disbelief. He can reflect my mood, say things even Nick is afraid to say, things that can be crude or violent. Nick's mom left him at age 8 and young Nick had a hand puppet who he used to talk to."

"So he's like a security knuckle." I suggest.

A native of Bramalea, Ont., and a relative neophyte to the biz, with credits Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Mount Royal and Hot Shots. Stewart says this role is "a well-tailored suit. (None of which Nick wears.) Nick is very unnaturally casual about things that drive most of us crazy, like not having a regular job when he wakes up."

And when he wakes up, he's usually hung over.

"He deals with pain casually. In every episode, he loses something -- dignity, pride, a woman. He's fighting something but he's not obnoxious, I think he's a charming guy."

Series producer Andras Hamori, co-producer of the hugely successful fantasy thriller, The Gate, which gave him an open door policy on other projects, concurs that Rob was made to order.

"The physical part of Nick's character was not established. We first saw Nick Nolte as the character, big, bulky, lazy, kicked out of every type of police work. Nick is a Canadian cop, but the Nick Nolte character doesn't exist in Canada, perhaps except for Michael Ironside. We decided to go for casting. At the end of the audition, we went to Rob and said "Don't shave or lose the ponytail. From a burned-out cop we decided he would be a bum in paradise."

Carolyn Dunn, who hails from Nova Scotia, is another newcomer, with credits on the series Hitchhiker, Street Legal, My Secret Identity and the movie Thick As Thieves comprising the biggest part of her resume.

She is a vibrant redhead with a gamin personality, charming and ingenuous, not unlike Leslie Caron at her most appealing.

"I'm Nick's associate, running his business side. Nick is the only game in town, the private eye, and I'd never go to him unless I was desperate but i'm in debt.

"Nick's great with a punching bag and reads girlie mags and Sylvie is chic and well bred. There's a repellent kind of attraction to each other, a love/hate."

Dunn liked the character because she's so opposite her own.

"Sylvie is so exacting. My clothes are everywhere. I send out my undies to be laundered.

"When I was a little girl, I was either going to be an actress or a policewoman. Now I'm doing both. I used to have Barbie and G.I. Joe make love and make Ken watch. I borrowed the Barbie Doll. Ken's a wimp, G.I. Joe isn't, even though he was shorter than Barbie."

Speaking of dolls -- in this case voodoo -- we come to beautiful blonde Kate Vernon, the guest star in this episode called "She".

She's spent the day in the water being "rescued" by Stewart.

Nonetheless, the hair person doesn't think the wet look is just right, so he spritzes her locks.

"I'm apparently under a trance. Nick assumes I'm under a voodoo spell and he comes dashing into the water to save me. I'm Veronica, the ex love of Nick's life"

Vernon says she got the role because she auditioned for Sylvie and the producers promised her ones of the juiciest roles.

She prefers to work against type. "I'm blonde and blue-eyed, so they say 'let's give her a bimbo role.' I'm not high gloss, I work against my looks."

She has been in Los Angeles for 23 years but she was born in Toronto, to an acting legacy., Her father is John Vernon.

"Dad tried to scare me out of the business because he knew it's hardships. He says in his deep voice 'Love it or die for it'

"I said 'Lighten up, Dad, that's not the reality'."

But close to it in Mexico, when you consider those deadly blonde scorpions.

Rita Zekas

In Mexico

©The Toronto Star