I Made Shōgun's Anna Sawai Answer All My Borderline-Inappropriate Mariko + Blackthorne Questions
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[There are major spoilers ahead for Shōgun episode nine. If you haven't watched yet, bookmark this post for after you see it.]
It's only April, but unless you're watching Shōgun, you're already behind on the best show of the year. Based on the novel of the same name by James Clavell, it follows an English ship captain who ends up in Japan in the 1600s and quickly realizes 1) just how much of a fish out of water he is 2) that he has inadvertently stepped into a society preparing for war, and he won't be leaving anytime soon. Anna Sawai plays Mariko, the woman in charge of translating for the rough-around-the-edges captain, and she quickly becomes the emotional center of the show. A surprising romance blossoms between the two, but in the series' penultimate episode, "Crimson Sky," it comes to a tragic end.
Here's a very quick plot rundown for those who somehow forgot a single detail of this episode. Lord Toranaga sends Mariko to Osaka to try to bring his wife, consort, and son back to him. They both know she won't be able to leave the castle with them because, even though Lord Ishido denies it, they're being held hostage. Mariko's role is essentially to go and prove a point to everyone else. When she's not allowed to leave with those hostages, she tells everyone in the castle that she's going to commit seppuku because she isn't able to honor Toranaga's command. Realizing that allowing Mariko to commit seppuku would be incredibly bad PR for his cause, Ishido intervenes at the last minute and stops her from killing herself. But just when you think Mariko might get out of this alive, she's attacked in the middle of the night and decides to throw herself in front of an explosion to honor her pledge to Toranaga. The final scene shows John Blackthorne cradling Mariko's dead body in his arms.
The episode is an absolute roller coaster that leaves you asking two things. Wait, what does the final episode of this show even matter if Mariko is already dead? And maybe more importantly for me, a person who's been stanning Mariko and Blackthorne since episode 2, how will I ever personally recover from the loss of one of my favorite on-screen not-couple couples? I hopped on Zoom with Anna Sawai to talk through all of it.
Where do you think Mariko's head is at going into this episode? She's on this huge mission and the stakes are high.
This is an episode where she has clarity. She's found resolution and she's ready. Everything that she's about to get into is what she was looking for, which is to serve her lord and have a purposeful life. Playing her in episode nine felt very liberating and empowering for me.
Do you think Toranaga's intentions in sending her to Osaka were pure? He's been known to rearrange the chess pieces.
I approach the character as having a very pure and loyal approach to him. I don't know how he views Mariko, maybe he is thinking about it in a broader sense. She is just very loyal. I don't think that she knows his whole plan. But whatever he wants her to do, she believes that it will be for a greater cause because she believes that he is a great lord. So I think it's pure.
Your character and Lady Ochiba have a wonderful moment in the garden during this episode. We see them both drop their defenses a little bit. What do you think allowed them to do that?
This is the first time they're face-to-face in an unofficial setting. Blackthorne is there but he doesn't understand what they're talking about. To her it felt like she was seeing her friend again. It's not Ochiba, it's her best friend from her childhood. In the beginning it feels a bit more formal. Mariko feels like Ochiba's just trying to stop her, trying to get her way. But when she starts to talk about their childhood together, she understands that, Oh, she still cares about me. Maybe she wants me to stop because she doesn't want to see me die. The story about their childhood brings her to missing her friend, and just talking to her at this regular tone, where it's not performing politics and whatnot.
I love the scene where Blackthorne very earnestly asks Mariko to stay alive for him. It's so sweet. Do you think Mariko was tempted at all by that argument?
It's a very foreign concept for her. She grew up learning that you're supposed to serve your lord. So I think she does believe it's sweet. In episode four they share a moment where they're going on an imaginary date in London. There are moments that she may doze off and think about it, but it's nothing she believes is real. And him wanting her to stay alive for him is a nice thing. But she also is like, you really don't understand, that's not the whole point of this life. In the seppuku scene, he's the one coming up and putting his needs aside and trying to adjust to her way of life.
What do you think it means to her when Blackthorne says he's willing to second her?
It's the most romantic thing that he's done. Both of them are Christians: She's a Catholic, he's a Protestant. It is totally against the religion to do anything close to that, and yet he is willing to allow her to have a peaceful death, to die without the sin of killing herself. She's dying a good Catholic and a loyal samurai. It's the biggest gesture that he could do.
In an earlier episode, Buntaro, Mariko's husband, talks about how Blackthorne really allows Mariko to open up. Why do you think that dynamic exists between these two characters?
In the beginning, she doesn't believe that he would understand her. She's just like, this person is trying to ruin our country. But she doesn't really care about what he thinks and I think that allows her to be a little bit more herself in a way that the Japanese men haven't seen her. And despite showing that side, he's so accepting of it. He's like, more. I want to know what you want to do. What is freedom to you? That's very refreshing. She feels seen for the first time as a human being, not as just a woman who is the property of the men.
Do you think Mariko was in love with him?
I think that she, and this is Anna speaking, I think that she was. They both deeply care about each other. And maybe the love that we know now is completely different from back then. Japanese people don't really say I love you. They would, like, look at the moon and say, the moon is beautiful. And that was a way to say I love you. The concept is very different, but I think that was love.
Okay, is it bad that I was glad they got to hook up one last time? [Laughs]
[Laughs] I'm happy you're happy. I think it was well-deserved. They waited the whole entire series to like finally get together. Because the first time, she knew, but the audience didn't really know if it was her. And she was in denial for the whole five episodes that came after. I'm happy they got their moment because I really do think the happy times they shared were so limited, and it's nice to see them together again.
What do you imagine they said to each other in that moment?
I didn't think about the words that they shared. I only thought about the acceptance of one another. Because in episode eight, she's shutting down, she knows that it's not great to continue with the relationship. And so it's finally like, I am here and you are too and we're going to share this. We understand each other. We are the only people that see each other this way. And they're just sharing it. So I don't know about the words. I would like to ask Rachel Kondo, who wrote this beautiful episode with Caillin Puente.
I read that you shot the series chronologically, so was the scene with the explosion the last scene you filmed?
Yes. It was a very technical shoot because we had to do four different versions of it: One where we're going into the store house, one where I'm just reciting my lines and the camera's up closer on me, one where I'm just standing in front of the door to get blasted. Finally, it was on my last day with the whole cast in the room, and I remember playing dead in Cosmo Jarvis, who plays Blackthorne, his arms and everyone's just crying over the fact that Mariko was dead. Hearing their voices, I was tearing up as I played dead, and it was the hardest thing ever. I was like, a tear is about to fall and I'm not supposed to be digesting all of this! So that was a very hard thing to do, to stay unemotional in a very emotional scene.
Do you think Blackthorne will ever understand the choice she made here?
I don't know if it's understanding, but I think that he will be accepting of it. Because that's her choice and that's how she wanted to live. And he cares about her and he cares about what she wants. So he probably won't agree with her choice, but maybe understand, and fully accept.
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