Tadanobu Asano interview: ‘Shōgun’

When audiences meet the character of Yabushige in FX’s “Shōgun,” they see him boil a man alive just to listen for the moment of his death. In plain terms, Yabushige is a villain. But his portrayer, Tadanobu Asano, believes that Yabushige doesn’t see himself as the bad guy, which may be why the character quickly became a fan favorite. “I felt that he doesn’t notice that he’s bad,” says the actor in an exclusive chat with Gold Derby. “To him, it’s just him living his life and to him that’s normal. So that was the intention. It think that’s why people are so drawn to him.” Watch our video interview above.

Yabushige spends much of the season shifting his loyalties towards whomever can benefit him the most. Asano describes the character as always pushing the boundaries to see what he can get away with. “He loves watching people react to what he does,” he says. “He is a vassal of Toronaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), but he’s always one of those vassals that is always a little bit over the line. He sometimes crosses that line compared to the other vassals, but it’s because he always curious about the outcome.”

Much of the dialogue in “Shōgun” is a more ancient form of Japanese rather than the modern form of the language. Asano says that his intent was to combine the ancient and the modern in his performance. “There’s a certain pattern, a certain rhythm that everyone expects out of a period TV show or movie in Japan, and that’s something that I didn’t want to get into the rut of,” he explains. “For me, what was really interesting was bringing that subtext, bringing my modern thoughts towards the older text. Really melding the modern intent with the more period speech.”

Even though the series has been met with raves from both critics and audience, Asano admits that he can’t put his finger on a single reason why “Shōgun” has received so much positive attention. “The crew and the entire team, we’ve been really happy. We want to ask the audience,” he says. “We had a great script. It was a great experience shooting it. It’s been great to see everyone react to that. So we’re almost perplexed by the popularity.”

Whatever the reason for the show’s popularity, Asano believes that the most important part of his job is to play the role realistically in a way that transcends culture and language. “As long as my work as an actor in that moment, I capture that role as realistically as possible, that words don’t matter,” he says. “Japanese doesn’t matter. English doesn’t matter. As long as I’ve done my work and represented that character off the page in the most real manner, the words don’t matter and audiences will understand and be entertained.”