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 . Sanada works behind the scenes too, as a kind of cultural adviser ensuring that the various productions in which he appears get the Japanese elements right. This was particularly important in Andrew Levitas’s Minamata , the story of one of the world’s most famous ecological scandals , the mercury poisoning of the Japanese coastal city’s water by the Chisso chemical factory that was uncovered in 1956. “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. “He was generous with the crew and cast and on weekends we would have a drink together. He loves jokes and would play the guitar and sang for me. I had a great time with him. Since the film was shot in Serbia – Minamata is a very modern city now – some of the Japanese extras came at their own expense from London, Germany and Japan just to be around him. They were not disappointed.” As usual, Sanada had a hand in developing his role, an amalgam of a number of heroic men who took on the corporation. “Initially Andrew sent me a different role. After discussing my ideas, three months later he sent me a new script with a new role as the leader of the activists. He’d addressed all my concerns about having respect for the people of Minamata. “I’d also watched his first movie, Lullaby , which likewise had a delicate theme about a girl with cancer, where you felt love and respect for the families and patients. So I knew I could make this film with him.” Sanada concedes that Minamata could not have been made by Japanese filmmakers. “It’s too controversial,” he says. “If they make it, it’s going to be mild about the cover up. But Andrew doesn’t take sides. It’s very balanced.” A lover of research, Levitas says he created enormous files of information – more than 400 pages as well as links. “Yet with all the information I gave to Hiro, he probably gave me twice as much back. He spent his own time and didn’t have an office of people doing all this. He became a valuable resource and a partner in the production.” Levitas isn’t aware that Sanada makes a habit of this – and is a little shocked when I tell him. The self-effacing Sanada is one of the last people to sing his own praises even if Minami calls him “a great movie star and someone younger Japanese actors really look up to”. A child actor in Japan, Sanada had an all-round training including martial arts, which he perfected on two early Hong Kong films, Ninja in the Dragon’s Den (1982) and Royal Warriors (1986). “That was an incredible learning experience,” he says. Oddly enough his English-language career began when he performed with The Royal Shakespeare Company in London. “My goal with English-language roles was to start with television or a movie and finally end up on stage, but the RSC came first. Mixing and sharing our cultures, we learned from each other to create something new. No one had seen this before and my goal changed. “Soon I got my first Hollywood role in The Last Samurai and even if I’d hated that kind of thing before – I was far from a Hollywood person – doing Shakespeare changed my mind. I became determined to jump in there and change their misunderstanding and say everything about our culture even if it was going to be my first and last Hollywood movie. Fortunately for Sanada, the production team was receptive to his ideas, and he ended up staying six months by himself for the post-production and made a considerable impact on the film. Sometimes they don’t understand the difference between Chinese and Japanese people and they cast Korean-American or Chinese actors for the Japanese roles Hiroyuki Sanada talks about Asian roles in Hollywood “That was the beginning of my life in the US,” he says. “Since The Last Samurai , every project I’ve been involved in I was like that: as half actor, half crew. That’s my position I think. I moved to LA because I felt there was no more wall between east and west in our industry, and if there is still one there I need to break it and make a bridge for the next generation.” So what does he see as the most annoying misconception regarding Japanese culture in Hollywood? “Sometimes they don’t understand the difference between Chinese and Japanese people and they cast Korean-American or Chinese actors for the Japanese roles. Those things happen a lot, so that’s why it should change and it must be authentic – the set, the costume, the dialogue, everything. But I think little by little they start to understand, and they cast Japanese people for Japanese roles like in this movie,” he says of Minamata . Sanada was also grateful to play a part that is not a ninja/samurai/yakuza, which has so often been the case. “When I started doing action films they called me ‘an action star’, but action is just one of my skills. Basically I wanted to be an actor, so for now sometimes there’s no fighting like this in this movie, sometimes I’m a samurai like in Westworld and I’ve just filmed Mortal Kombat in Australia. It all depends on the role and the script. If the director wants me to do something, I just do it.” Want more articles like this? Follow SCMP Film on Facebook