COLLIDER: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk aboutShogun.
TADANOBU ASANO: Thank you very much.
Thats when they said to me that they wanted me to play Yabushige.
Custom Image by Jefferson Chacon
ASANO: When I first read the script, he was as all of us pictured him.
Hes quite a trickster and he betrays a lot.
I would try several things on set to see how that would go.
When a mysterious European ship is found marooned in a nearby fishing village, Lord Yoshii Toranaga discovers secrets that could tip the scales of power and devastate his enemies.
ASANO: With Sanada-san, I worked with him for the very time about 30 years ago.
I was only 19 years old at the time.
I wanted to value that.
Image via FX
Among the relationships your character has over the course of the show, one of them is with Blackthorne.
Its very fascinating because the two of them come close to being friends in a way.
What did you enjoy most about playing through that evolution with Cosmo [Jarvis]?
Image via FX
ASANO: Cosmo Jarvis, hes such an interesting and funny actor.
He does not treat him as a foreigner.
How does that change him from the person he was before?
They were all living under this unbelievable, unfathomable force that we cannot see.
Thats why hes so utterly confused in the instance where he sees the death of Mariko.
What was your reaction to that and where he ends up?
It really signifies thatYabushige is a man who is of the moment.
He leans into moments.
They’re watching the sunrise together earlier in the season, Yabushige has to meet his death by sunset.
Theyre sitting by the cliffs, Yabushige almost died to those cliffs at the beginning.
ASANO: They were very complicated sentiments that I had after having wrapped my part in the show.
One was having a sense of just this fulfillment of having done this character.
ASANO: I actually forgot the first instance in which Yabushige orders to rewrite his will.
As the series proceeds, you start to mold the character as the story unfolds.
I knew thatI already had to be in Episode 6 mindset from Episode 1.
I had to be ahead of the story.
They give us the completed script as we go along.
He would just have his subordinates do it.
I was always ahead of myself in terms of episodes, so thats how it all unfolded.
Shogunis available to stream on Hulu in the U.S.
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