Shōgun's Lady Mariko finds power in her voice, and the same is true of Anna Sawai, the New Zealand-born Japanese star who plays her.
After landing the lead in Nippon TV's production of Annie in 2004, aged just 11, Sawai rose to fame as a lead vocalist in a J-pop girl group named Faky from 2013 to 2018. Sawai then made the transition from singing to acting in both English and Japanese across a range of multilingual shows including Giri/Haji, Pachinko and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters before joining Shōgun.
"I don't know if I go into a project being like, 'Okay, this is multilingual. That'd be fun'," says Sawai. "It just happens like that. I've been lucky that these projects have kind of fallen in my lap. I don't have to go out and look for them."
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In the case of Shōgun especially, it feels more like the role of Lady Mariko went out looking for her, because it's obvious that Sawai was born to play this part.
That steely mix of vulnerability and defiance she embodied in earlier shows has never been sharper and more refined than it is here. In a show-stealing turn, Sawai brings poise and hardened determination to Mariko, a smart, upper-class woman who somehow possesses all the power and none of it at the same time in 16th-century Japan.
Acting as aid and interpreter to Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), Mariko has the ear of her lord, yet not even the support of someone so powerful helps when it comes to escaping her marriage of duty. Being a devout Christian woman in Japanese high society traps Mariko in a prison not of her making, although that doesn't stop her from speaking her mind at key junctures throughout Shōgun – or even manipulating the voices of others when it suits.
"She's just so layered." says Anna. "With every character that we see in the show, Mariko has a different type of relationship. She's so fragile, but at the same time, she is in control of everything, everything that surrounds her. Like her relationship with [Toda] Buntaro might not be great, but Mariko's able to use that and take action to get her way."
The same can be also said for Hosokawa Gracia, the real-life person Sawai's character is inspired by.
Akechi Tama, as she's also known, was born into an aristocratic family in 1563. History remembers Gracia best as a political hostage who broke the samurai code of conduct imposed on women by refusing to commit seppuku (suicide by disembowelment). After she later died in 1600, Gracia's actions eventually led to the death of military commander Ishida Mitsunari, which in turn triggered events that would result in the formation of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Yep, Gracia's impact in just 37 years of life was enough to help form an entire military government that ran from 1603 to 1868. Still, many of the exact details around her life are vague or disputed by historians today. That complexity can also be felt in Sawai's enigmatic interpretation of Mariko's story which swirls and changes depending on the context and who else is present:
"Knowing that she's based on Hosokawa Gracia-san, knowing that she actually existed just made all the sense to me. So even though Mariko's all these different things, once I had this clear, vivid image of her, she wasn't hard to play. It just felt like I had more reasons to be the way that she was, almost."
Mariko doesn't inadvertently form a new government in Shōgun, well, not yet anyway, but she does wield a great deal of political power still, even if no one else in the story actually realises it.
The role of interpreter is never a passive one, although it might not always seem that way. But even on its most basic level, the process of translating different languages back and forth requires a certain amount of subjective interpretation. The end result is never going to translate identically, especially when the conversations at hand span languages and cultures that are as vastly different as English, Portuguese, and Japanese.
And therein lies Mariko's power. As the go-between for Toranaga and Pilot Major John Blackthorne, Sawai's character holds direct sway over how these two men understand each other. Given the political turmoil they're all wrapped up in, words matter here more than ever, and Mariko is ultimately the one who controls them.
"You can totally judge how she's translating," Anna points out. "Obviously, Mariko is a Catholic and Blackthorne comes in to give her news about the Portuguese. She's sceptical and she doesn't believe in him so that's why she chooses her words when she's translating it to her Lord. It gives her power in some sense, but obviously she's not making up stories. She's just choosing different nuances."
These varying nuances aren't just political either. They can be amusing at times, like when Mariko deflects her husband's insults from Blackthorne, or even erotic in nature. While Mariko interprets a conversation about sex for Blackthorne and his new consort, there's a tangible lust that hangs in the air between him and Mariko instead, even if the words that carry this attraction don't technically belong to her.
Sawai of course interprets these interpretations in her own way too, using her physicality to add yet another layer of meaning to what's really going on throughout these scenes: "It does play in the words," explains Anna, "but it's also kind of the looks that Mariko has when she hears something and then just turns to the Lord and says something else."
In a time and culture dominated by men, Mariko is forced to grasp autonomy where she can, forging power for herself in the spaces between sentences with a look here or a slight word twist there.
That nuance is also intrinsic to how Shōgun translates as a show. While this new retelling is technically an American production (courtesy of FX), Japanese culture and talent is integral to making Shōgun the success it needs to be. Even the dialects heard throughout have been painstakingly researched to ensure they're authentic to the era yet can still be understood by modern-day Japanese audiences.
Beyond that, universal themes around duty, legacy, and speaking up for what you believe in ensure that Shōgun will resonate across borders to find an international audience too. In fact, this retelling couldn't have come at a better time, says Anna:
"The world is now opening up to these different cultures and they want to learn about things that are unfamiliar to them. If I'm able to share my country's history and culture with people who don't speak the language, then that's the best opportunity."
It's not just Shōgun where Anna strives for that either. Being able to "juggle between English and Japanese, being able to participate in these kinds of projects, it means a lot," she tells us.
With more seasons of Pachinko and (hopefully) Monarch on the way, Anna will continue using her two languages to represent Japanese culture and women like Mariko whose voices deserve to be heard across borders. Her ongoing support of multilingual projects like these is making history in that sense, just like the original Mariko once did in real life.
Shōgun has released with episodes 1 and 2 on Disney+, with new episodes dropping every week.
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After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.
In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.
David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.
Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends.
As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound.
