♪ (INTENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
JONATHAN NOLAN:
our characters from
not just into a different world, but a different genre,
a different moment in cinematic history?
A world that has its own rules, its own texture,
and its own delirious energy behind it.
LISA JOY:
different stories in different parts of the world
was just a production dream come true.
(SWORDS CLANKING)
As an actor, it was... (SIGHS)
You're on these incredible sets,
the costumes were-- were just immaculate.
What they created, this whole new world within a world,
was just beautiful to be a part of.
I'm like a customer of the theme park. (LAUGHS)
Is this real or a dream?
-♪ (INTENSE MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪ -(SWORDS CLANKING)
I grew up watching kind of equal parts Sergio Leone westerns
and Akira Kurosawa, uh, samurai films.
The connections between the two genres
were too delicious to pass up.
JOY:
the audience for the park wouldn't just be Americans
or people interested in the frontier of America.
It would be an international audience, and the park
would therefore have to have an international bend.
NOLAN:
Craig Zobel, who directed the episode,
and Dan Dietz, the writer on episode five,
and the entire crew threw themselves into it
in a way that was frankly, kind of terrifying.
It's a mirror of Sweetwater. And I was going... "Oh, God."
And it's in Mariposa, but it's a teahouse, you know,
and I was like, "How do I build a whole town,
and where the heck do we do it?"
JON CARLOS:
and some of our western architecture.
So, we were able to basically take a portion of our
Melody backlot and convert it into an Edo-period town.
NOLAN:
to feel faintly familiar, right from the get out,
right as you walk down Main Street,
but still distinctly Japanese.
Architecturally, if you looked at the layout,
it is the same shop layout as Sweetwater,
to get to this teahouse, which is the Mariposa.
So, the action all becomes mirrored.
(SAFE CRASHES)
Because the intro to Sweetwater is always, like, a blacksmith,
and then the guy taking photographs,
and so we had to recreate those icons,
so that was pretty interesting.
A fun little fact too is, if you look at most of the stores,
there is a store that represents each of the departments
that it takes to create a production on film.
So, you can find a store that is a homage to hair, to makeup,
to accounting, to stunts, to art, construction,
to writing, so, an alert viewer might
recognize some of these things.
Everything about the show, to me is, it's impressive.
It's the highest level. The production value
to the sets, and that makes a big difference.
We walked past at one point, watching, uh,
day after day as they built the cherry blossom tree
that's at the center of town.
We're literally gluing one leaf at a time onto the tree.
And you kind of think to yourself, "God, there must be
a better way." But there isn't a better way,
there isn't a better way to make something
beautiful and believable.
We wanted to get that similar desaturation,
we wanted to get at some of the crispness of the images
from Kurosawa's films, so that the place would feel
distinct and different.
The angle of the sun on that street was not the best.
And it's a narrow street, so you would have all these shadows
coming in at different times.
We created a structure over the city,
and we put trusses over the set, and soaked the entire set in,
so, we could have this kind of foggy, up in the mountains,
non-direct sunlight every time on shoot.
I think the fans of, uh, Japanese classical films
will be very impressed, because it feels like
it's set in Kurosawa film, so, I'm really proud of this.
(SPEAKING JAPANESE)
NOLAN:
Hiroyuki Sanada and Rinko Kikuchi,
both of whom, movie stars in their own right, but also,
beautifully committed to presenting as much authenticity
with their performances as possible.
HIROYUKI SANADA:
Shogun World in the Westworld, in the theme park.
It was a great collaboration, mixing culture
and create something new no one ever seen.
We relied heavily on making sure everything was in Japanese
to keep that authenticity. The chance to explore that
with a Japanese cast was just so delightful.
(SPEAKING JAPANESE)
THANDIE NEWTON:
was a traditional Japanese speak,
it wasn't modern Japanese. I mean, this was like
being on the most intense and immersive field trip ever.
I actually had to go directly to the real history of it,
and then think about it in terms of it being so long ago.
What would you tweak?
What would you tweak to make it an amusement park version of
the Edo period?
FRANCINE LECOULTRE:
for the kimono.
We've been doing very large amount, actually, so,
each costume has many layers, there is cutting,
then there is aging, then there is painting, and all that.
I looked at a lot of books just for the value of white.
A lot of Shogun was at night, and I really wanted there to be
a translucent quality to the geisha,
so that you could see through.
This is all human hair, and it takes about two days
to do a geisha wig. You have to section it off
and place your rubber bands in just the right place,
you have to use lots of hairspray,
so, you will get the bend and the swoop
of the style that you see.
This is first time to wear those costumes, makeup, and hair.
So, I was so excited to be on set with those stuff.
So, yeah, it was so fun with it.
ELISA MARSH:
together on that first day
and saw all of the elements together,
that was a good day.
(SPEAKING JAPANESE)
(MAEVE MILLAY SPEAKING JAPANESE)
LISA JOY:
sense of familiarity, and you realize that Lee has
sort of plagiarized himself in some of the details
in Shogun World. But of course, the characters in Shogun World
have their own lives, their own loves,
and their realities are just as vital.
Akane and Maeve share their loves for their daughter.
So, that feeling amplified their connection.
It's hard to describe, it was just like a unique experience.
We were looking at each other, and it was kind of like... okay.
The characters were kind of, you know, competing
to each other now that they see themselves in a mirror.
And it was amazing for Maeve, because it literally forced her
into the shoes. You know the saying,
"You can't judge another unless you walk in their shoes."
That's what they were having to do.
SHAREN DAVIS:
were all mirrored.
So, I had to keep the same colors on them,
or contrast them. So, that was really fun
because Maeve's would be more lively where Akane's
would be more serious and traditional.
But it was quite a challenge to figure out how to make
Hector's costume, say for instance,
match the Japanese version, and that just was with
strips of leather on his kimono and all his clothes.
So, it's incredibly creative, you really wanted to
have fun with it.
I thought it was a great idea.
Traditional kimono plus western material in the idea.
So, I'm enjoying that kind of balance.
That's one of the things that's most intensely beautiful
about this season is that it's allowing an audience
to truly recognize the oneness that we share,
no matter how your languages differ,
how your situations differ.
Wherever you are, you know there are these
universal similarities.
You know, I grew up obsessed with mythology.
And you see these commonalities across culture, you know?
It's like we're all struggling to tell the same stories.
Stories of love, and redemption, and villainy.
And it's amazing to me to explore some of those
commonalities and it's one of the things that
binds them together so quickly.
Shogun World is, frankly, a hell of a lot more violent.
This is for the hardcore folks. This is a place for whom
shooting someone at several paces doesn't engage enough
for the senses.
For Shogun World, we got to switch from guns to,
uh, swords and arrows.
It was a completely different world.
It was more fun, in fact, because, you know,
there's not a lot of room for a sword,
you gotta be real close with your measurements
when you're swinging blades around
like that in a big fight.
Hiro is, it turns out, a master swordsman himself.
So much so that the stunt performers who all
came from Japan were kind of in awe of him the first time
they showed up on set. And we loved this.
It allowed us to be completely practical in all of these
moments with these swordfights.
When I was a child actor, you know, I saw a lot of
stunt guys on set in the samurai movies doing their own stunts.
So, I thought, I want to do everything by myself because
that's the best service to the audience.
In fact, I asked Hiro while we were waiting to teach me some,
you know, some stuff, and I was kind of like trying to
learn all that. And it's just very poetic,
it's beautiful, it's like a dance in this martial art.
So, to me it was a treat.
JAY WORTH:
to extend, the bigger one for us is all of the battle sequences.
We are adding so much blood. So many beheadings,
arms getting chopped off, limbs getting chopped off.
And there's a dance that needs to go on where we work with
stunts for how they're choreographing the fight,
and there are moments where we swap out a real sword for a,
we call them "stubby swords," so that they can pass through
or be safely pushed into somebody to appear that they're
being stabbed so we can properly extend those stubby swords
back in visual effects with computer graphics.
The death of the shogun was again, a team effort.
It was special effects, makeup effects,
creating amazing sculpt of the head shogun
with his head flipped open.
And that's a highly complex effect, you know,
using a likeness head of the actor
that could flip open to the side,
which would reveal the inside of the esophagus,
and tongue, lower jaw, and palette.
Then we also had a stunt actor that wore
the same flipped over head on his shoulder,
so he could stand up, and walk, and collapse onto the ground.
Don't you enjoy seeing badass female characters
beating someone? It doesn't happen often.
That's why I really enjoy every bit of it.
I told you, I've found a new voice.
Now, I use it.
JONATHAN NOLAN:
With this show, we never wanted to rest on our laurels.
We never wanted to take for granted
the audience's interest and investment in the show.
We wanted to keep them entertained, and frankly,
selfishly, we wanted to keep ourselves entertained.
JOY:
People talk about the writing and the ambition there,
and that's a huge part of it. But another huge part of it
is the look of the show.
To have the challenge to be able to transport people
to a different place doesn't happen, you know, often.
CARLOS:
and it's lit, and it's costume, and you stand back and view it,
like a viewer for a moment, it's quite amazing.
We've been very lucky as actors on the show that
we're supported by such an incredible team.
And also, on something that's so unique and different.
You don't feel like you're ever treading old ground
with a show like this.