Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada on working with Johnny Depp and teaching Japanese culture to Hollywood
- The Japanese actor has worked with Tom Cruise, Hugh Jackman and, most recently, Johnny Depp
- Sanada talks about Hollywood and his role as an adviser on Japanese culture
Hiroyuki Sanada is a Japanese powerhouse and the 59 year-old, who has been based in Los Angeles for 20 years, doesn’t mind playing second fiddle to Hollywood superstars. In fact, he makes them look great, whether it be alongside Hugh Jackman in The Wolverine or Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai – and now Johnny Depp in the Berlin Film Festival stand-out Minamata.
“After I received the first draft I started to research and I was shocked,” Sanada says in an interview in Berlin. “Even though I grew up in Japan, I felt shame that I didn’t know deeply about this. But this theme is not only for Japan; it’s global. We should tell this story to the world to learn from the past and create a better future.”
Depp felt strongly about the subject matter too and, together with Levitas, produced the film. The actor sports a bushy grey beard and curly hair as W. Eugene Smith, a burned-out heavy drinking war photographer who is enlisted by Japanese-American activist Aileen Mioko, played by Japanese-French newcomer Minami, to take on the corporation via a series of now world-famous photographs that appeared in Life magazine.
It is one of Depp’s best performances in some time and, like Sanada, he favours a team atmosphere on set. “Johnny spent a long time in make-up every day but was always calm and gentle,” Sanada recalls.
