[Translation] Sho's long interview, Cut April 2012, part 3
Why do you try to keep your emotions attached to the drama in everyday life?
As we’re filming, I noticed that, within the duration of 2 hours, there are not many moments when the man called Shirahama Shouhei is cheerful, although there are times when we could see [him a little cheerful] as if it’s the light seen from between the clouds.
For example when he talked to Akira (played by Imai Shinoki, a war orphan), and although it’s not in every scene, at times when he’s with his family. My impression as I read the script was that he almost never cheered up, so if I came to the shooting location feeling all so happy and say “Good morning!”, from that instant, it would be hard to move to the top gear (T/N: hard to immerse in the role), so I think it’s best to keep the emotions this much.
When we watched the filming, we saw that it was as if something was torn from you, also there was a sense of tension and heaviness. Is there any sensation that you came to feel when you bear the mentality of Shirahama Shouhei?
“For my country”, a man who has that very strong ideology came home, and as he meets his family, students, the people around him who have changed, he feels like he is being eaten by fleas little by little.
He is at a loss of what to do, and at the same time the things he believes in are still exist. Being suddenly thrown into a place where the values have changed while ours remain the same is….how should I say this….it feels miserable.
Mentally it’s quite tough, I believe.
I think it’s an uncertainty that is similar to despair. In our present lives, we don’t experience that kind of drastic change, so I can only imagine though. Also, he regrets that he had continued teaching his values to his students, and in reality there are students who died.
But if he regrets, that would mean the values he had believed in before are defeated, so he can not regret. I think it must be very hard and painful.
How is it like, to perform those emotions while adding your experience to act as the role?
“It is after all, I don’t know if I can put it this way, but I can only feel and find out. It’s like, we search for the answer as we film and proceed. In this drama, I'm lucky that the director, Hirano (Shunichi) san is a man with a strong basis, and based on that, he thinks very flexibly on my acting. We can proceed by discussing things like, “we took this scene today this way, so I think it would be better if we take the last scene this way.”
I think, and maybe it is also true for every work that, among many correct answers, the problem is, which one will be selected. In this drama, I am convinced that the answer I and the staff selected together is the correct one. It feels like finding the best as we film it.
Shouhei’s emotions are different at the first, middle and the last part, when you play as him, in which part do you put the axis of Shirahama Shouhei?
As expected, if we look at the script, well maybe it’s the very first part, but indeed I think it would be at the beginning, when he faced the students. The militarism ideology is his axis. It is after all, a story about how he came back and how his heart is rapidly being sliced off. (T/N: have emotional conflicts).
We haven’t taken it though, the first scene. Shirahama Shouhei in that scene is, in any case, very bold and proud.
Do you act while trying to understand how Shouhei feels, that is, “I’m sorry I survived”?
Yes, I want to understand. But I don’t feel for example, reluctant to work as Arashi, or burst into tears after I’m back home, at all (laugh).
'Feel the same as him, or filming while understanding how he feels', in reality, we don’t know how effective it is though. Probably it is not effective at all, but after it ends, I don’t want to think “If I'd done that maybe it would've been different”, so I try to do everything. Hm, well, I'm worn out...
So to understand that feeling, you watch films and other materials?
Yes, to understand and to make my feelings attached. The feelings here are not necessarily Shirahama Shouhei’s though, it could be the vibes or the atmosphere of that era.
Do you feel that your experience in interviewing people who experienced war for News Zero contributes to this work? In the sense that this drama is set in the post-war era.
Yes, I do. Last year I went to report about a mobilized student (to war) from Nagano prefecture, Uehara san. I interviewed his little sister, which is my senior at school.
We went to a quiet mountain where a river flows, and we were standing on a bridge crossing that river when she said “Here, my brother waved his hand and his figure gets smaller and smaller…” I can’t forget her face when she said that.
I could only imagine it, no matter how much I listen to their story. But there are moments when the story I heard from people who actually experienced it….or rather, the expressions on their faces, come to me in flash backs.
As a newscaster, you interviewed people from many genres. Among those people, how do you face the people who experienced war?
Hmm, I wonder….well, my first priority is that “I have to convey”. How it was like or how they felt at times of war, for example. I think it is motivated largely by my curiosity about that too.
This time also, if we were going to meet someone, we’d do some research about the local area too, right? So, interviewing those people made some sort of a start [for something else].
Is there any connection between what you felt in your report for Zero and “Blackboard”?
The main theme of “Blackboard” is education, so, I think discussing it as a war story could be misleading, but someone I interviewed in Nagasaki died 2 years ago, and just right after we began to film this drama, an old lady whom Murao san had met in Hiroshima passed away. Coincidentally enough, lately, the feeling that “we’re running out of time” feels more imminent, repeatedly. I thought we should preserve that era in a tangible form. Although that is not the only purpose.
part 4
T/N: okay, it's 2500~ words so far, 1500 more to go, lol. I don't know if I can make it before it airs on April 5, but I hope the interview so far already gives you some ideas about "Blackboard", a work that is apparently very important to Sho.
I think it's very interesting and I enjoyed translating it, I hope you enjoyed reading it too.
Feel free to discuss about the interview, Blackboard and/or Sho in general in the comments
Thank you for reading, and thank you for all the nice comments, I really really appreciate it...<33
oops, almost forgot, the LQ scans are here,
as usual, credits are not necessary (both for the translation and the scans) but do not claim as yours and do not make money out of it...
thank you.
As we’re filming, I noticed that, within the duration of 2 hours, there are not many moments when the man called Shirahama Shouhei is cheerful, although there are times when we could see [him a little cheerful] as if it’s the light seen from between the clouds.
For example when he talked to Akira (played by Imai Shinoki, a war orphan), and although it’s not in every scene, at times when he’s with his family. My impression as I read the script was that he almost never cheered up, so if I came to the shooting location feeling all so happy and say “Good morning!”, from that instant, it would be hard to move to the top gear (T/N: hard to immerse in the role), so I think it’s best to keep the emotions this much.
When we watched the filming, we saw that it was as if something was torn from you, also there was a sense of tension and heaviness. Is there any sensation that you came to feel when you bear the mentality of Shirahama Shouhei?
“For my country”, a man who has that very strong ideology came home, and as he meets his family, students, the people around him who have changed, he feels like he is being eaten by fleas little by little.
He is at a loss of what to do, and at the same time the things he believes in are still exist. Being suddenly thrown into a place where the values have changed while ours remain the same is….how should I say this….it feels miserable.
Mentally it’s quite tough, I believe.
I think it’s an uncertainty that is similar to despair. In our present lives, we don’t experience that kind of drastic change, so I can only imagine though. Also, he regrets that he had continued teaching his values to his students, and in reality there are students who died.
But if he regrets, that would mean the values he had believed in before are defeated, so he can not regret. I think it must be very hard and painful.
How is it like, to perform those emotions while adding your experience to act as the role?
“It is after all, I don’t know if I can put it this way, but I can only feel and find out. It’s like, we search for the answer as we film and proceed. In this drama, I'm lucky that the director, Hirano (Shunichi) san is a man with a strong basis, and based on that, he thinks very flexibly on my acting. We can proceed by discussing things like, “we took this scene today this way, so I think it would be better if we take the last scene this way.”
I think, and maybe it is also true for every work that, among many correct answers, the problem is, which one will be selected. In this drama, I am convinced that the answer I and the staff selected together is the correct one. It feels like finding the best as we film it.
Shouhei’s emotions are different at the first, middle and the last part, when you play as him, in which part do you put the axis of Shirahama Shouhei?
As expected, if we look at the script, well maybe it’s the very first part, but indeed I think it would be at the beginning, when he faced the students. The militarism ideology is his axis. It is after all, a story about how he came back and how his heart is rapidly being sliced off. (T/N: have emotional conflicts).
We haven’t taken it though, the first scene. Shirahama Shouhei in that scene is, in any case, very bold and proud.
Do you act while trying to understand how Shouhei feels, that is, “I’m sorry I survived”?
Yes, I want to understand. But I don’t feel for example, reluctant to work as Arashi, or burst into tears after I’m back home, at all (laugh).
'Feel the same as him, or filming while understanding how he feels', in reality, we don’t know how effective it is though. Probably it is not effective at all, but after it ends, I don’t want to think “If I'd done that maybe it would've been different”, so I try to do everything. Hm, well, I'm worn out...
So to understand that feeling, you watch films and other materials?
Yes, to understand and to make my feelings attached. The feelings here are not necessarily Shirahama Shouhei’s though, it could be the vibes or the atmosphere of that era.
Do you feel that your experience in interviewing people who experienced war for News Zero contributes to this work? In the sense that this drama is set in the post-war era.
Yes, I do. Last year I went to report about a mobilized student (to war) from Nagano prefecture, Uehara san. I interviewed his little sister, which is my senior at school.
We went to a quiet mountain where a river flows, and we were standing on a bridge crossing that river when she said “Here, my brother waved his hand and his figure gets smaller and smaller…” I can’t forget her face when she said that.
I could only imagine it, no matter how much I listen to their story. But there are moments when the story I heard from people who actually experienced it….or rather, the expressions on their faces, come to me in flash backs.
As a newscaster, you interviewed people from many genres. Among those people, how do you face the people who experienced war?
Hmm, I wonder….well, my first priority is that “I have to convey”. How it was like or how they felt at times of war, for example. I think it is motivated largely by my curiosity about that too.
This time also, if we were going to meet someone, we’d do some research about the local area too, right? So, interviewing those people made some sort of a start [for something else].
Is there any connection between what you felt in your report for Zero and “Blackboard”?
The main theme of “Blackboard” is education, so, I think discussing it as a war story could be misleading, but someone I interviewed in Nagasaki died 2 years ago, and just right after we began to film this drama, an old lady whom Murao san had met in Hiroshima passed away. Coincidentally enough, lately, the feeling that “we’re running out of time” feels more imminent, repeatedly. I thought we should preserve that era in a tangible form. Although that is not the only purpose.
part 4
T/N: okay, it's 2500~ words so far, 1500 more to go, lol. I don't know if I can make it before it airs on April 5, but I hope the interview so far already gives you some ideas about "Blackboard", a work that is apparently very important to Sho.
I think it's very interesting and I enjoyed translating it, I hope you enjoyed reading it too.
Feel free to discuss about the interview, Blackboard and/or Sho in general in the comments
Thank you for reading, and thank you for all the nice comments, I really really appreciate it...<33
oops, almost forgot, the LQ scans are here,
as usual, credits are not necessary (both for the translation and the scans) but do not claim as yours and do not make money out of it...
thank you.