“The book is a very complex group of thoughts and stories,” said Michaela Clavell, daughter of James Clavell, the author of Shōgun. Published in 1975, the novel follows the first Englishman’s arrival in Japan in 1600, but was told through a shifting narrative that continuously changed perspectives. When first adapted as a miniseries in 1980, the approach simplified the story to just the Englishman’s perspective, barely including subtitles. Michaela Clavell serves as an executive producer on FX’s limited series adaptation of her father’s work, joining a TCA press conference for a look at why it was time for a more faithful adaptation. “We were very proud of being able to translate the novels, which is a very complex story, into this series. It comes through beautifully.”
(Frank Micelotta/PictureGroup for FX Networks)
“A lot of people are aware of the great accomplishment it did, the book as well as the miniseries,” producer Eriko Miyagawa shared of how well-known the source material is in Japan. “The fact that Shimada Yoko was the first Japanese actress to win a Golden Globe, and Mifune Toshiro. The book and the miniseries really opened many doors and peoples' interest towards Japan. I think it's deeply appreciated for that. But I don’t think the novel in and of itself or the miniseries were necessarily as big as it was here.”
“Now, there's a sushi restaurant on every corner,” mused Hiroyuki Sanada, who stars as Lord Toranaga and also serves as a producer, which gave him more control on set than ever before. “I could hire Japanese crew, specialists from samurai dramas. Wigs, costumes, props, everything. For the first time ever, I had a team to make it as authentic as possible. I was so lucky and happy. Of course, the responsibility weighed on my shoulders. But more than that, it was fun to create the authentic drama with a Western crew and Japanese crew together. We had a dream East-meets-West team.”
“He chose Japanese culture as something that he wanted to talk about,” Anna Sawai said of James Clavell. In the series, she plays Toda Mariko, a woman uniquely positioned to translate between Toranaga and the Englishman, John Blackthorne. Mariko has her own rich backstory that unfolds throughout the novel and FX series. “I am so grateful that he was making that the subject at a time where that wasn't really common… We're able to give a version that's more deserved for the characters that didn’t have much perspective [in the 1980 series]. It was more Blackthorne's perspective. And, so, we get to see a little bit more of the Japanese side.”
(Frank Micelotta/PictureGroup for FX Networks)
Cosmo Jarvis takes on the role of John Blackthorne in this fish-out-of-water story. “I learned at the same pace that Blackthorne learned things,” Cosmo revealed about going into the project somewhat blind, not speaking Japanese, for example. “I didn’t learn anything before, but I guess before we started, I tried to familiarize myself with basic geopolitics of 1600 and Catholics and Protestants and Queen Elizabeth and stuff. Once that was nailed down as a foundation, I suppose it was just a case of commencing the shoot and seeing what the script required of him.”
“[We] were dying to do this show in Japan,” revealed showrunner Justin Marks, who co-created this adaptation alongside his wife, Rachel Kondo, and also serves as a writer and executive producer. “We got out of the writers’ room super excited to start that journey. Then about six weeks later was March 2020 and everything came to a pause. There were good things that came out of that in terms of our process. But the one real casualty was our ability to plausibly shoot this in Japan anytime over the next couple of years. And so, British Columbia became the next best feasible solution… It actually was a nice fit to the landscape and terrain we were after, it turned out, after some scouts. But it meant that we had to, in a lot of ways, bring Japan to us. And that's really where Hiroyuki and Eriko became our key assets in choosing who we would bring.”
“The Japanese actors, even the experienced actors, never had an experience shooting out of the country,” Hiroyuki added. “We had to take care of them and teach them new systems. But they learned so quickly, and most of them enjoyed shooting with a Western company. A lot of the young Japanese actors want to do this again.
“We’re able to ask ourselves new questions because of the book and because of the ripple effect of its legacy up until now,” concluded co-creator, writer, and executive producer Rachel Kondo. The East-meets-West dynamic wasn’t limited to the set, but also pre-and-post production. Dialogue was written in English, then translated to Japanese for filming. “Once it was performed, then it was retranslated back to us in English so that we could try to bridge the gap between the performance and the viewer's experience, closing that gap.”
A truly global production, Shōgun premieres Tuesday, February 27th, with a double-episode premiere at 9/8c on FX and Hulu.