Shogun’s Hiroyuki Sanada Has a Clear Plan for Season 2: “We Have Real History”

Shōgun star and producer Hiroyuki Sanada has been acting since he was five years old when he emerged as the protégé to acclaimed Japanese martial artist Sonny Chiba. Now approaching its sixth decade, Sanada’s career has become every bit as impressive as his legendary mentor’s. The Tokyo-born actor blazed a trail in Japanese and Hong Kong cinema before finding purchase States-side in projects like Speed Racer, Avengers: Endgame, John Wick: Chapter Four, Westworld, and more.

Through all of these roles, however, one historical figure has popped up over and over again for Sanada. Tokugawa Ieyasu is the shogunate ruler who kicked off Japan’s prosperous 17th and 18th century Edo Period and served as the inspiration for Sanada’s Shōgun character Lord Yoshii Toranaga. Minutes before being presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Savannah College of Art and Design at SCAD TVfest in Atlanta, Sanada spoke with Den of Geek about his close connection to Japan’s most powerful shōgun and the era he helped build.

“I played Toranaga’s model, the real shōgun Ieayasu, when I was 20. I played young Ieayasu 30 years ago. And Toranaga’s rival, Ishido Kazunari, whose model is Ishida Mitsunari, I played him twice on TV before. I had a lot of chances to learn the background of that history, and then I played other samurai roles in the same period. So that was a good base for me,” Sanada says.

In some respects, Sanada’s path bears remarkable similarities to Tokugawa Ieyasu (albeit with a lot less violence). Both men dealt with great expectations early, found some success in adulthood, and then unveiled their masterworks in their sixties. Sanada chuckles at the comparison.

“Ieyesu was a hero of mine when I was kid. He taught me a lot. So playing him and introducing him to the world was very important for me. Playing his role means a return to him.”

Though Tokugawa Ieyasu’s life continued on for more than 10 years after establishing his shogunate, Yoshii Toranaga’s story comes to an end with his grandest political success. Or at least it did in James Clavell’s 1975 novel upon which FX’s Shōgun is based. FX, Sanada, and showrunners Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks have elected to turn this limited series into a proper TV series and continue on with a second season.

While Clavell’s series of “Asian Saga” novels contain no obvious roadmap for Shōgun going forward (beyond some descendants of Shōgun characters popping up in later timelines), Sanada is confident that history has given them more than enough to work with.

“We used the whole novel part already. So we have no novel in the season two, but we have real history and models,” Sanada says. “We know what happened in the history. So you keep that taste of season one but we’re going to create original entertainment, fictional entertainment, not just the history book.”

In other interviews conducted on the SCAD TVfest red carpet, Sanada revealed that the writers’ room for Shōgun season 2 is already underway and they are hoping to begin shooting later this year, meaning we might not have to wait much longer for the next chapter of this tale.

The post Shogun’s Hiroyuki Sanada Has a Clear Plan for Season 2: “We Have Real History” appeared first on Den of Geek.