Emmy nominee Anna Sawai proud she got to downplay sexiness on Shogun

LOS ANGELES – Could Japanese rising star Anna Sawai beat Hollywood veterans Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon to win Best Actress in a Drama Series at the Emmys on Sept 15?

Nominated for her role as Lady Mariko in Shogun (2024), the Disney+ historical drama set in feudal Japan, Sawai is considered by many to be the front runner for the award.

Shogun also leads the pack in 2024 with 25 Emmy nominations in total, including for Best Drama Series – making it the second non-English-language show after South Korea’s Squid Game (2021 to present) to be recognised in this category.

Sawai’s competition includes American actresses Aniston and Witherspoon, who are both nominated for The Morning Show (2019 to present), a satirical comedy drama on Apple TV+ in which they play hosts of a news programme. Both were nominated in this category before, but did not win.

Aniston and Sawai attended events in Los Angeles in June to promote their shows – which have both been renewed for more seasons – among Emmy voters, prior to the July 17 announcement of 2024’s Emmy nominees.

Sawai, 32, spoke of the challenges of adapting author James Clavell’s iconic 1975 work of historical fiction, Shogun, which is set in the 1600s and was inspired by historical figures.

She plays Mariko, a noblewoman who becomes a translator for John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), an English sailor marooned in Japan.

Weighed down by heavy layers of traditional garb, the New Zealand-born, Tokyo-based performer worked hard to perfect Mariko’s movements as well as the archaic form of Japanese spoken by the characters.

But what Sawai felt most proud of was the deliberate decision that was taken, in collaboration with the show’s creators, to not overly sexualise her character.

“I had felt, growing up as an Asian woman, that people do look at and think a certain way of me because of the portrayals they’ve seen in a lot of media.

“So I didn’t want to perpetuate this (stereotype of a) sexual, sexy, exotic Asian person,” says the actress, who also stars in the sci-fi series Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters (2023 to present) and Pachinko (2022 to present), a period drama set in South Korea and Japan.

Instead, she wanted Mariko to be known for her “intelligence, strength and vulnerability”, so Sawai spoke to Shogun’s creators about not showing the character climbing into a hot spring with Blackthorne during an emotionally charged encounter between the two.

That way, “they could have that human, mentally sexy connection, and it would be even more intimate”, she explains.

“And I’m really happy we did it the way we did.”

Aniston, 55, was pleased that her character, Alex, finally gets a proper love story in Season 3 of The Morning Show, which premiered in September 2023 and saw her falling for a billionaire played by Jon Hamm.

The fraught romance ties in with a bigger character arc in which she “saves the day”, says the star, who won a Best Actress in a Comedy Series Emmy for the sitcom Friends (1994 to 2004).

“It was exciting for me knowing that was going to be the arc of the season, beginning with Alex again asking for a seat at the table (at work), and watching that struggle.

“And then meeting a wonderful billionaire who decided to take over our company, and the moral dilemma of falling for somebody who you know might not necessarily be the correct choice – but you can’t help who you love,” says Aniston, who starred in the Murder Mystery comedy films on Netflix (2019 and 2023).

But Alex’s complicated relationship with her friend and colleague Bradley (Witherspoon) continues to be the cornerstone of the story.

“We have a really interesting relationship,” says Aniston. “We’re family, for sure – we love to hate each other and we love to love each other. And that’s a really fun dynamic that Reese and I get to play.”

But the actress has no idea what the writers have in store for the two women for Season 4.

“Of course, we would like to be together forever. But we really don’t know what’s going to happen,” Aniston says.