The highly anticipated second season of the FX hit series will see the actor return to his role as Lord Toranaga.
What’s Happening:
- Deadline shared a brand new interview with Shōgun star Hiroyuki Sanada.
- The hit FX series, based on James Clavell’s 1975 novel, was recently renewed for a second season and received 25 Emmy nominations.
- Sanada stars as strategist Lord Toranaga who is responsible for unifying 17th century Japan in the series.
- The actor also played Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1989’s Oda Nobunaga, the real-life man who inspired his character in Shōgun.
- Sanada’s career spans nearly his entire life, with internationally known hits including The Last Samurai, Speed Racer, Bullet Train, Lost and Westworld.
- In the interview, Sanada shared how impactful it was to bring a culturally accurate depiction of Japan to life.
- As a producer on the hit series, Sanada recalled his time growing up in Japan. He made it a point to push for accurate cultural representation of Japan. He states, “after I came to Hollywood, including The Last Samurai, every single show or movie, I’ve done consulting about our culture. So, how to explain to the Western crew, every single project trained me in how to correct our culture. So, all that experience worked for me on Shōgun as a producer. I’ve done everything by myself before, but now, I’ve got a title of producer, and then I could hire Japanese Samurai drama specialists for each department: costume, wig, props, for every department. So, I had a team for the first time — so, much easier and smoother. I could be joined between the Japanese crew and cast with the Western crew and cast. So, I put all my experience in my life into Shōgun, as an actor, and as a consultant for the past 20 years.”
- The series, which was originally intended to be a mini-series, is being extended past the story of the 1975 novel. Sanada, as a producer, said he’s excited about “keeping this platform for the Japanese crew and cast for the next generation, it’s a very important thing.”
- In terms of where the story could go, Sanada is excited about giving the writers a “kind of freedom.” He continued, stating “We have history. We have real models, and we know what happened. So many episodes are there in the history. So, I hope the writers will enjoy that freedom. These kind of things are already in our DNA, I believe. So, with respect for [Clavell], his style, they create original stories freely. I’m so curious, and I cannot wait to read the first draft from them.”
- One of the series' biggest risks was making 70% of the dialogue in Japanese. Sanada, who fought to accurately represent the Japanese language in the series, responded to the success of the series by sharing “even with 70% Japanese [language], again, the viewers felt our character and emotion from our acting. So, their cheering taught me that acting is acting. And then language is just a language. People can feel from the acting. So, again, it’s good strength and energy for the making of Season 2 or 3 and any other project from now on. Language is not a big barrier anymore.”
- You can check out the full interview here.
- Shōgun Season 2 is expected to film next summer. You can watch the entire first season of the series on Hulu now.
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