By the final episodes of Shōgun, it becomes unmistakably clear that Anna Sawai has been the period drama’s most pivotal character all along. The critically-acclaimed FX miniseries, based on James Clavell’s 1975 novel, transports viewers to Japan in the year 1600, where rival lords on the country’s Council of Regents are on the brink of war. Sawai plays Mariko, a noblewoman and practicing Catholic, whose lord, Yoshii Toronaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), tasks her with translating for English sailor John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis). Mariko is the picture of a dutiful samurai woman—proper and preternaturally calm, hiding any inner turmoil behind her eightfold fence—and while portraying Mariko, Sawai is able to show the often-unacknowledged strength with which Japanese women have lived for centuries.
Considering Hollywood’s notorious history of diminishing female characters to one-note caricatures, it is a revelation to watch the 31-year-old slowly peel back layers of Mariko’s unshakeable social mask to reveal her nuanced internal world, as she balances her duty towards Toronaga with her deep-seated grief from losing her entire family in the wake of her late father’s disgrace. “Without Mariko and Fuji, Blackthorne could be dead by episode 3 or 4 maybe,” Sawai says, while chatting with Marie Claire over Zoom from her home country, Tokyo, where she's spending some well earned downtime following a whirlwind press tour.
