Del Castillo still can't go back to Mexico

The new Netflix series "Ingobernable" - "Ungovernable" - is set in Mexico.

But when it came time to start filming the Spanish-language drama last summer, the show's star had a problem: She couldn't go there without risking arrest.

Kate del Castillo, one of Mexico's best-known actors, was wanted by authorities for having met with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, Mexico's best-known drug lord, while he was on the run in 2015.

The actress, 44, shot to fame after starring in a string of popular soap operas. The drug lord, thought to be in his early 60s, started out as a street vendor and came to lead the world's most powerful and murderous criminal syndicate.

Their relationship, based on mutual fascination and formed over a series of secret text messages, became Guzman's undoing, eventually landing him in a U.S. prison awaiting trial on charges of drug trafficking and murder.

Less publicised are the problems it has caused for Del Castillo, who was vilified by Mexican officials for befriending Guzman, and who said her career has suffered in the fallout.

For "Ingobernable," producers worked around the situation, shooting Del Castillo's parts in San Diego and using a double for her street scenes in Mexico.

The show is a none-too-subtle critique of her home country.

The first season unfolds against the backdrop of a bloody drug war, rampant government corruption and forced disappearances - much like the real Mexico. The main plot point is a thinly veiled reference to the disappearance of 43 students in Ayotzinapa in 2014. n February, the attorney general's office announced that in compliance with a court ruling, it had cancelled the order to find and question De Castillo.

But the actress said she believes the government is planning a new case against her and said her lawyers have told her it is not safe for her to go back to Mexico.

She said she'll return only "when my layers give me a green light, and I can go without any risks."