star Hiroyuki Sanada’s journey from child actor in Japan to Emmy-nominated actor and producer was a long and winding road. Now he’s embracing the moment. “It’s a great journey for me,” Sanada, who spent 40 years as an actor in Japan before making the transition to Hollywood, where he’s worked for two decades, told Yahoo Entertainment.
“This is big.” The actor, 63, scored his first leading role as master strategist Lord Yoshii Toranaga in the FX series The show, which has nabbed a whopping , also earned Sanada his first producer title. And finally, he garnered his first Emmy nomination, for Lead Actor in a Drama Series.
“It's like all my journey went into , and then brought me a nomination,” he added. While the critically acclaimed show collected the — and even responded to overwhelming support by adding a — was not without its risks when it was in development over the course of nearly eight years. Unlike the 1980 TV miniseries that came before, which was also based on the James Clavell novel of the same name, this would focus squarely on Japanese culture, and on Toranaga instead of English ship pilot John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis).
The series would also anchor most of the dialogue — 70%, in fact — in Japanese, with subtitles. “Until we released the first two episodes, we didn't know,” Sanada said, referring to the overwhelmingly positive audience response. It was “kind of a gamble.
” That gamble has since paid off, as became FX’s in the f.
