“Shōgun”'s Hiromatsu actor took the job for this one scene

"I had a really hard time coming into set that day," showrunner Justin Marks says of the dramatic events that unfold in episode 8.

Warning: This article contains spoilers from Shōgun episode 8, "Abyss of Life."

When Shōgun star and producer Hiroyuki Sanada saw the three actors in the final round of consideration for the role of Toda Hiromatsu, his onscreen right-hand man, Sanada knew there was only one guy for the job: Tokuma Nishioka.

Sanada and Nishioka have a working relationship that goes back more than 30 years in Japan, even at one point playing father and son. In Shōgun, the pair share a comparably close relationship: Hiromatsu is the lead general under the fief of Sanada's Yoshii Toranaga. He is the voice of his lord's conscience as Toranaga executes his long-laid plans to achieve power in Japan.

Those plans involved a certain scene that, according to Sanada, made Nishioka want the Shōgun job in the first place: Hiromatsu's death by seppuku. "I remember the first day Tokuma-san came to Vancouver. The first word was about, 'How shall we make that scene? I took this role just for this thing and showing real spirit to the world. That's my mission. That's why I'm here,'" Sanada recalls of Nishioka in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. "We know the feeling and emotion of each other so easily. I could read the subtitles from his eyes, and he read mine too."

"I blocked out the writing of it. It was too painful," writer Rachel Kondo says of that scene.

"I don't think until Tokuma's performance did we realize what an amazing character Hiromatsu really was," showrunner Justin Marks adds. "We knew he would be a voice of morality, but we had no idea that he would bring so much humor in the way that he did, which makes his death all the more painful. I had a really hard time coming to set that day because we really, really didn't want that to happen."

In the eighth episode of Shōgun, which follows the death of Toranaga's son, Nagakado (Yuki Kura), the lord's generals have gathered before him to protest his impending surrender to Ishido (Takehiro Hira). In an attempt to dissuade him from his current path, Hiromatsu threatens to perform seppuku. Toranaga solemnly accepts the act, watching as his favored general and closest friend takes his life.

So much unspoken dialogue occurs between Toranaga and Hiromatsu in this moment, even as he plunges the blade into his stomach and his own son, Buntaro (Shinnosuke Abe), severs his head. It's only revealed until much later in a conversation between Toranaga and Lady Mariko (Anna Sawai) that Hiromatsu's death was a necessary part of his larger plan to convince his enemies of his surrender. He then turns to Mariko to kick off the next phase, asking, "Are you ready to do your part?"

Marks and Kondo explain how they changed the original scene from author James Clavell's Shōgun book, which saw all of the generals take their own life. Shannon Goss adapted this scene for the series, and originally they did plan to have the others join Hiromatsu in seppuku. Through conversations with the writers and the actors, the events evolved.

"We really wanted to personify it with a character we had gotten to know," Marks says. "We had a meeting with Hiro-san before we shot the scene where he said he thinks Hiromatsu, like any Japanese leader, should witness in this moment these generals on the verge of proposing seppuku in protest of what their lord is doing. In order to save their face and bring something back from the brink, he would instead be the one to speak up and order them that they cannot. Of course, the performance turns into something else."

Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour, who directs episode 8, had many conversations with Sanada about what's going on in Toranaga's head at every moment in the sequence. "There is a moment when [Toranaga] turns to Hiromatsu after he's proposed what he's going to do that says, 'No, you fool. Not you. This theater needs to happen. Everyone serves a role, but I don't want it to be you, but since you've said it, we can't hold this back,'" Marks says. "His eyeline had not lined up with the camera until that point. He's always been shot from the side, but he's looking straight at the audience and the audience is looking straight back for the first time in the scene. It is a devastating scene. It is my favorite scene in the whole show."

"It was so tense, and so many takes we took," Sanada recalls. "But every take [there was] so much emotion coming. It was hard to avoid to cry."

Shōgun streams every Tuesday on Hulu and FX.

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