Anna Sawai explains why her 'Shogun' role felt personal

One of the first questions Anna Sawai asked showrunner Justin Marks when they first met to talk about “Shōgun” was: “Why are you remaking this?”

Co-created by Marks and Rachel Kondo, FX's adaptation of James Clavell's best-selling novel has been a long-gestating project. But at the time, Sawai's perspective was limited to what she could glean from her audition materials, which included a character description, a synopsis, and a portion of a script involving a bath scene that was anything but revealing. .

“I wanted to know that they weren't just trying to make another white savior story,” Sawai says. “That this time they were going to do it right.”

The 10-episode limited series, premiering on February 27, takes place in Japan in the year 1600. The historical drama primarily follows a main trio that includes Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), a warlord and regent of Japan's five-member governing council. whose life depends on outmaneuvering his political rivals, and John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), an English pilot serving aboard a Dutch ship arriving at a town within Toranaga territory.

Sawai plays Toda Mariko, a noblewoman and converted Christian who Toranaga calls to serve as an interpreter between him and his new foreign captive. Dedicated to her faith, as well as her duties as a vassal, wife, and daughter of a disgraced family line, Mariko's journey involves discovering her purpose and how to live it on her own terms.

“I wanted to know that they weren't just trying to make another white savior story,” Sawai says of FX's “Shōgun.”

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

“I don't think I knew how deeply Mariko would affect me,” Sawai says while curled up on a couch on a recent February afternoon in the middle of a “Shōgun” press tour that would see her crossing the Pacific Ocean between Tokyo, Los Angeles and New York. “His story of her seemed very personal to me.”

Enough time has passed since the 10-month shoot of “Shōgun” wrapped for Sawai that the series he had filmed after the project, Apple TV+’s “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,” has already been released. But she is full of emotions as she gathers her thoughts about her experiences as Mariko.

“It was quite difficult,” Sawai says as she recalls moments on set when she felt overwhelmed by Mariko's feelings or when she felt frustrated at not performing to the level she believed the character would have set for her. “She seemed very real to me and the weight of [her story] “It was very heavy.”

Even beyond the nuances of Mariko's character and story, the role is undeniably demanding. Mariko needed an actor who spoke fluent English and Japanese and could perform in both languages comfortably. The historical “Shōgun” setting involved wearing layers of kosode – the standard Japanese garment at the time – as well as a long, heavy wig. As a noblewoman of that era, Mariko also masters a naginataa long-bladed spear-like polearm, and has the opportunity to wield it.

Marks admits that he sometimes had doubts that they would ever be cast in the role.

“We couldn't just cast someone good in this role, it had to be someone extraordinary,” Marks says during a recent video call. “The problem is that we didn't know what was extraordinary. “You know it when you see it.”

Luckily, the executive producers of “Shōgun” saw him in Sawai.

“When we saw her as Anna, we saw someone who brought modernity” to the role, Marks says. “Someone who can approach it from a place where she interprets a humanity beneath the surface of the text. [that] We needed Mariko to work.”

Her “layer of contemporary attitude,” as Marks calls it, is what allows the audience to see Mariko as a sympathetic character. It is rooted in Sawai's awareness of the various Hollywood tropes and misrepresentations that have plagued Japanese women on screen for decades. It was one of the reasons she was wary of the bath scene used for the audition, in which Mariko joined Blackthorne in a hot spring.

“I didn't want it to be another depiction of Japanese women being sexualized by white men,” Sawai says. “I wanted this to be the right representation of women.”

But early conversations with Marks allayed that concern, as he and the show's writers were also intended to be aware of the genre's problematic conventions.

“Justin said everything I needed to hear,” Sawai says, adding in Japanese that it put her at ease.

This “Shōgun” is less a remake of the acclaimed 1980 miniseries than an entirely new imagination that uses Clavell's novel as a starting point. Featuring an impressive cast of Japanese actors, most of the dialogue is in Japanese with subtitles. Care was taken to include the perspectives of the Japanese characters and to ensure the level of cultural and historical authenticity that should be expected from an appropriate audience. jidaigeki – a Japanese period drama.

The series marks Sawai's third high-profile television project in as many years. In 2022, the New Zealand-born Japanese actor appeared in the Apple TV+ adaptation of “Pachinko” as Naomi, a businesswoman struggling with the limitations and social expectations of 1980s Japan. Last year, she made her debut in the Legendary's interconnected Monsterverse opposite Godzilla in “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” as Cate Randa, a former schoolteacher trying to overcome her grief, trauma and complicated family dynamic after the kaiju battle that destroyed her. home. (Sawai says she was looking to do “something fun” after the drudgery of “Shōgun.”)

With credits that also include 2021's “F9: The Fast Saga” and the 2019 BBC/Netflix drama “Giri/Haji,” Sawai is no stranger to playing Japanese characters, but “Shōgun” is her first Japanese historical drama. And since Sawai had no background jidaigeki experience, preparing for the position involved learning how to wear and move in a kimono, becoming familiar with the language of the time (which is as different from contemporary Japanese as Elizabethan English is from its modern American cousin), and attending a riding camp. while I was in Japan.

“They allowed me to learn from the ground up and really prepared me with the best equipment that was available,” says Sawai, who admits she was nervous about her inexperience in the genre when production began.

During this initial preparation, Sawai also reunited with his former sword fighting instructor on stage. The school Sanada recommended, Takase Dojo, was one he had previously attended while working in the Japanese entertainment industry as part of a J-pop group years before.

“Coming back to them and being able to work with them on a collaboration now instead of asking them to just teach me, it was a pretty surreal experience,” Sawai says.

Sawai also felt a little intimidated by meeting Sanada, who in addition to starring in the series also served as a producer. She talks about how kind and generous Sanada was with her time and guided her with esteem.

“I felt like if I had any questions, I could go to her at any time,” Sawai says. “He loves this project and really wanted it to be the best.”

Sanada was someone Sawai could turn to when she felt stuck, particularly because of the pressure she was putting on herself.

“I would ask him what I need to do or 'What am I not doing right?'” Sawai says. “I think I looked at him like Mariko looks at Toranaga-sama.”

One piece of advice from the veteran actor that helped Sawai know how to direct Mariko's emotions was to simply feel it, but “try to hide it, because that's what Mariko would do.” It fit, Sawai says, because it's something every Japanese woman is used to doing.

In an email, Sanada praised Sawai as “talented” and “hardworking.”

“In each episode, she asked questions and practiced independently until she was satisfied,” Sanada says. “I think only she could have played this role.”

Anna Sawai, who plays Lady Toda Mariko in the upcoming FX television series, "Shogun."

Sawai's “thoughtful and considered” questions and “commitment to excellence” were also among the things that impressed Kondo throughout the production. (He also made sure to mention the numerous times he saw Sawai sitting on the floor of an office with the “Shōgun” staff dogs.)

“Anna is the kind of person, the same way Mariko is the kind of character, who doesn't stop asking questions until she reaches a certain level of understanding,” Kondo says. “I just feel like that assiduous search for some level of truth sets her apart from a lot of people.”

Kondo was another person Sawai would turn to on tough days when she felt like she wasn't performing as well as Mariko would have liked. Among the things Kondo would share during these conversations were stories about his own Japanese grandmother, who was his personal inspiration for Mariko.

“I don't think so [Rachel] he understands how important it was to the character,” says Sawai. “Mariko is a little bit of everyone. Hosokawa Garasha-san, [the real-life counterpart to the fictional Mariko]. Mariko by James Clavell. Raquel and her grandmother. It's a little bit of me. It is a little bit of every woman in Japan that she has suffered.”

As challenging as the experience was, Sawai is grateful and proud of the care and effort it took to ensure “Shōgun” portrayed the characters and Japanese history with nuance and authenticity. After having to warn his friends about certain Japanese elements that were “a little out of place” in otherwise beautiful projects in the past, Sawai is grateful not to have to worry about that in this series. He has made her want to be more intentional in her decisions in the future.

“Now I know myself better and I know what makes my heart move,” says Sawai. “From now on I only want to do projects that excite me.”

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