Hiroyuki Sanada has lived a thousand lives in show business: child performer, action star, Shakespearean Fool, Hollywood actor. As a consultant, he has long helped bring authenticity to depictions of Japanese culture. But he knows he found the role of his life, on and off camera, in the acclaimed FX drama series “Shōgun.
” His work as an actor in the series is impressive enough. Sanada, 63, plays Lord Yoshii Toranaga, a member of the Council of Regents in 17th century Japan. A skilled military and political strategist, Toranaga is put to the test when his fellow regents look to oust him from power.
With help from a shipwrecked Englishman (Cosmo Jarvis), an enigmatic translator (Anna Sawai) and an opportunistic, double-dealing lord (Tadanobu Asano), Toranaga emerges as a master chess player, allowing the action to come to him, responding accordingly and seemingly staying a step ahead of his enemies. Sanada, best known to American audiences through such movies as “The Last Samurai” (2003), “Sunshine” (2007) and “Bullet Train” (2022), infuses Toranaga with a steely stillness, patient but dynamic. He was already well familiar with the character, or at least the historical figure on whom he is based.
Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616) was the first shōgun of Japan’s Tokugawa shogunate, and an important figure in the country’s unification. “He was a hero from my childhood,” Sanada says by phone from New York. “He created a peaceful era for a long time after th.