Hiroyuki Sanada thinks ‘Shōgun’ success is ‘a huge steppingstone’ and reveals what Toranaga taught him
“As an actor and producer, I’m so proud of my team,” reflects Hiroyuki Sanada about “Shōgun’s” historic Emmy haul a few weeks ago. He adds, “It cannot be by myself. I had a great team.” In September the series won 18 Emmys, setting the record for the most statuettes any show has won in a single season. Sanada won Best Drama Actor and also collected a trophy for Best Drama Series. Watch our full exclusive interview above.
When accepting the series prize, Sanada spoke in Japanese to express “deepest gratitude to our crew, directors, and masters… the passion and dreams we inherited from you have crossed oceans and borders.” The actor now explains that growing up, “I had a lot of mentors, including the props masters, or the master of gestures, or my Japanese traditional dancing master. So many masters I had in my life. They created me. All the experience on set created me. I wanted to say thank you directly in Japanese. It’s a big thing for me. It’s a huge steppingstone for the industry, people in Japan, and the next generation.”
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‘Shōgun’ was the title used for the supreme military leader in feudal Japan for. In the series, Sanada plays Lord Toranaga, a warlord becoming isolated by his political rivals in Osaka. The actor says, “His patience makes him survive. I learned from him, don’t rush, life is a long journey. Telling his story to the world now, I’ve returned to him that feeling I had. Also, my position as a producer in the ‘Shogun’ set and Toranaga’s part in the drama overlapped. He didn’t want to be a Shōgun at the beginning. They asked me to be a producer and I didn’t want it at the beginning. But if I can be a producer, I thought we could make an authentic world, even in Hollywood. Now I understand his mind. He didn’t want it from the beginning, but learnt getting the title of Shogun can get a peaceful era. For me, working as a producer could make this drama authentic.”
In the eighth episode, ‘The Abyss of Life,’ Toranaga sends off his loyal subject Mariko (Anna Sawai) to fulfill her duty in Osaka. Sanada recalls, “That farewell scene with us is so touching.” He further explains that in approaching the scene he needed to, “try to hide and not explain too much. Just react with my instinct. Those instincts were inside me more than usual so I could relax when I act. Just communicate with others and be simple.”
In that same scene, Toranaga humorously refers to some other characters as the goshawk bird because they are “short-winged and predictable.” On what animal his character is like, Sanada says, “Toranaga’s Kanji character means ‘tiger forever.’ I would say he’s a tiger. A smart tiger hiding there as a weapon for others. A patient tiger.”
Sanada also won our own Gold Derby award for Drama Actor this year. He shares, “It was my first award as an actor in the U.S. I was so excited. That gave me strength.”
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