In Vancouver. Out in the rain. and the mud. — Anna Sawai about Shōgun shoots.
Anna Sawai knows Vancouver rain well after ten months shooting FX’s epic feudal Japan series Shōgun on the west coast of Canada in the Fall of 2021 and the Winter and Spring of 2022.
I think in the beginning, they told us six months. And then they were like, one more, one more. We were calling it the never-ending show. We were doing a lot of outdoor exterior shots in the rain, in kimono, with a wig that goes down to the hip. – Anna Sawai to Variety.
Thankfully, Shōgun wasn’t her only experience with filming in Vancouver. The New Zealand-born Japanese actress also spent five sunnier months in British Columbia in the Summer and Fall of 2022 shooting her role as Cate Randa in Apple TV+’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters and a few months inside on soundstages in the Winter of 2021 as investment banker Naomi in Apple TV+’s Pachinko series
But Toda Mariko on Shōgun is her big breakout role, especially after this week’s penultimate episode where a defiant Mariko challenged Takehiro Hira’s manipulative warlord Ishido in every way, especially in death. (The two actors played against each other in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters too, as daughter Cate and absent father Hiroshi Randa).
The Shōgun shoot:
It didn’t rain ALL the time: Shōgun’s John Blackthorne and Mariko romance unfolds in West Vancouver’s Whytecliff Park.
In order of production in BC:
Pachinko: February 6th 2021– April 9th, 2021.
Shōgun: September 22 2021 – June 30 2022.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: June 27 2022 – December 15 2022.
In Kamloops.
