‘Shōgun’ Almost Didn’t Cast Anna Sawai as Mariko: “I Was Playing it a Little Sexual”

Shōgun Episode 4 “The Eightfold Fence” sees John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) getting closer to his assigned translator, Toda Mariko (Anna Sawai), than ever before. The latest episode of the FX show — now streaming on Hulu — finally allows both Blackthorne and the Shōgun audience to understand more about Mariko’s background. She opens up to Anjin-San, as the Japanese call him, about her father’s crime, her family’s shame, and how she has survived by keeping her thoughts and emotions locked behind the titular “eightfold fence” inside her mind. Blackthorne, in turn, begins to better understand his role as a Hatamoto. He tries natto for the first time, starts to pick up various words and phrases, and earns the respect of Mariko and his reluctant new consort Fuji (Moeka Hoshi). More importantly, Blackthorne shows that he respects these Japanese women; he is struck by both their courage and their customs.

When Decider caught up with Shōgun star Anna Sawai shortly before the FX series’s panel began at Winter 2024 TCA, she told us that the number one thing she hopes audiences take away from Shōgun is how accurately it captured Japanese culture for the first time.

“You know, this is like the first project that I, as a Japanese person — a woman — I’m able to say I’m proud of what we did,” Sawai said.

While Sawai didn’t specify which past projects left her feeling wanting, she has previously appeared as Elle in the Fast and Furious movie F9 and has more recently starred in Apple TV+’s Pachinko and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.

Sawai was specifically excited that Shōgun was working actively against the sexualized stereotype of Japanese women she had grown up seeing on screen. The cliche was so omnipresent, she admitted during the show’s TCA panel that she originally approached Mariko in a more sensual way.

“The scene that I taped was the bath, bathing scene, the hot spring scene, and she was supposed to go into the bath with him,” Sawai explained. “And it felt to me like it was the same thing that we had seen before. And I think because the scene was like that, I was playing it a little sexual.”

According to Sawai, Shōgun‘s showrunners Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo originally passed on her because of this interpretation of the character. Only after they circled back weeks later, did Sawai give the scene another read. She also started reading James Clavell’s novel, which helped her understand the character better.

“The key to her, I would say, was to just have stoicism,” Sawai told Decider. “To understand that being powerful didn’t mean being loud. Once you figure out that this person actually lived — Mariko is based on Hosokawa Garasha — you don’t have to make believe. Like this was a real person. It was kind of easy to just channel her.”

That said, Sawai also admitted to Decider that reading the book wasn’t initially all that helpful because Clavell doesn’t introduce Toda Mariko until about 250 pages into the 1100+ page tome!

“I was reading that book forever and I was like, ‘She’s not in this book?!’” Sawai said, jokingly.

(Mariko totally is in Shōgun and plays an equally pivotal role on the page, but Clavell devotes the early portion of the book to Blackthorne’s unease upon arriving in 1600 Japan. The FX show bumps up many of the book’s important introductions to Episode 1.)

Sawai hopes that the care FX put into Shōgun translates into Western audiences cultivating a deeper appreciation for the reality of Japanese culture and history.

“This is all accurate and this is our country and our culture and our people,” Sawai said. “So I just hope that like they’ll understand. I just hope that we are able to repaint the image that they have of our community.”