Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa Interview

April 30, 2001 admin 0 Comments

Apr 30, 2001

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After working as a Hollywood actor for over a decade, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa appears in major roles two blockbuster films in the summer of 2001: Planet of the Apes and Pearl Harbor. He got his first big break as an actor when he was cast in Bernardo Bertolucci’s feature film The Last Emperor. He went on to roles in John Carpenter’s Vampires, Mortal Kombat and The Phantom. Science Fiction fans will recognize him from his appearances on “Babylon 5,” “Star Trek The Next Generation,” and his recurring role in “Space Rangers.” Tagawa was born in Tokyo and lived in various cities while growing up. He began acting in high school and was an exchange student in Japan while studying at the University of Southern California. In his free time, developing his new form of Martial Arts, called Chun Shin. [Chuu-Shin]

SCOTT: What was it like playing an ape?

TAGAWA: You know being an ape was definitely a different than I’ve played. This was certainly one to access deep within yourself. What I found, the more I looked, apes are closer to my own nature. And usually because I play so many bad guys, it’s not really a main part in my nature. There’d be instinct, intuition, and sensitivity. And this ape must be bad and mean, you know. And the whole thing, with them being an endangered species, has to do with that. We miss the other part of them, and if we’re able to connect to that more, I think we’d probably have less problems.

SCOTT: Well, obviously apes are very smart, don’t you think?

TAGAWA: Yeah. Absolutely. Smart and in touch with their feelings. They don’t have to go to therapists to deal with things. So in that, there’s a big part of understanding more about my own personal nature. And hopefully, not that this film’s going to really stimulate that in people, but that’s what I personally got out of preparing for the role. It’s funny how in my career, each one of my films that I’ve done has certainly had some importance.

SCOTT: How demanding was the shoot?

TAGAWA: It was the longest shoot I’ve ever been on. And basically I had three months of ape class! But when you actually have to play it out physically, it becomes a different thing than you think. You weigh 600 hundred pounds!

SCOTT: How long was your personal involvement?

TAGAWA: Five months, November to March. I didn’t work every day, I worked 43 days out of that many days, which, over five months, we’re talking 20 weeks and I don’t think I had anything shorter than 12 hours. I would do a four hour makeup and sometimes go another 12, so that’d be 16 hours. And the worst day was 18 hours. You know you’re having ape experience, working on Planet of the Apes, when you go to the set in the dark, and you go home at dark. You never see the sunlight without your mask on. And every time you look up at a street light in the dark, you see rings around it, because you’re so tired. And you have a ringing in your ear from not having enough sleep, which is not a good thing. And then the third thing is having this indelible urge at 3 a.m. for a banana! I live in Hawaii, we have banana trees, so we eat a lot of bananas. But I swear, from being on Apes, whenever I’d hit the table, I’d always be looking for a banana.

SCOTT: How did you stay in character that whole time?

TAGAWA: I was always moving like the ape. I was always sneaking up on people. I would stand next to their head. Sometimes for five minutes, waiting for them just to turn around and have this shock experience. I’d pick people out. So one of the things I did, I went over to the craft service table, I picked up the whole box of bananas and ran away, and people are cracking up. I used to jump Tim Burton on the set, out of a tree, and trick people.

SCOTT: You must have been the class clown.

TAGAWA: Well, actually not so much the clown. I was more serious. I was like the student body president kind of guy. I was really popular. I was more of a clown when I was like in kindergarten. After that I kind of lost it. I just turned 50, and I think it’s that second childhood thing.

SCOTT: Do you like playing in fantasy films? Obviously Apes is in that realm.

TAGAWA: I would have to say my preference is drama. I’m very much one of those actors who is an aging drama queen. Not a drag queen, but a drama queen, in that I live for drama. I think it really fits my personality, being very emotional and sensitive. So my first choice would be drama, second choice would be action, and actually my third choice would be sort of the science fiction. Although it is my third in my preferences, I’ve enjoyed every single time I’ve had to do something.

SCOTT: In the fantasy genre, was MORTAL COMBAT a memorable role for you?

TAGAWA: Certainly Mortal Combat, to me, is as classic a bad guy as I can create. And when I did that, my choice was to go so far over the top for a few reasons. One is I didn’t think I’d want to play the evil sorcerer again, and I wanted to give him a power and a strength that people would remember. One other thing was the dialogue. As actors, we are reading scripts, and I wasn’t familiar with the game, and when I saw the game, it made more sense. But even more so when I went to act it, I thought, “Oh, I can do this. I’ll give him the meanest, nastiest lines.” And sure enough, it was fun. I never realized I was making him that mean. Sort of shocked me a bit, but certainly that was one of my greatest experiences in acting.

SCOTT: Do you look at dailies when you’re doing these kind of movies?

TAGAWA: You know, I try to. That’s not always a possibility. I’m one of those actors who would rather know than wait until a movie comes out. I want to know if something worked.

SCOTT: Looking back on your experience, what can you say about Planet of the Apes now?

TAGAWA: It’s one of those movies that this will be a part of me in a way that no other movie will be, except maybe American Me which had that effect on my personal being. And Tim Burton presented one of the most pleasurable experiences working with a director. I’ve been real lucky to work with guys like him. He certainly is one of those guys you know comes from a perspective of the world that didn’t watch the news most of the time. He was watching cartoons. He seemed like the kind of guy–and this is where I connected with him very clearly–his creativity is just like a tension. It seemed to me, that he was a kid who played by himself for hours on end with this great imagination. And one thing you have to remember, we’re talking about a visual medium.

SCOTT: When you returned to re-record your dialogue, how was it to loop and see yourself as an ape?

TAGAWA: It looks incredible from what I saw. This was the first time I have not been able to loop and look at my face. I’m so mesmerized looking at myself as the ape. It was the first time I’ve looped without looking at the screen. I have a great ear so I can do that. But it just was the craziest experience. It was what happened to me when they were teaching us to eat in the makeup using mirrors. Basically, I’m looking at this ape. I’m feeding this ape, and I can feel it. It ‘s going down my throat. That much, even as the actor, had that effect. Powerful.

#planet of the apes