Yuya Yagira

From Cannes Best Actor Winner to Disney+ Horror Sensation

Yuya Yagira, the youngest winner of the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for his role in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s drama Nobody Knows, stars in the Disney+ seven-episode original horror series Gannibal in Japan. Released on December 28, 2022, Gannibal follows Yagira’s character, Daigo Agawa, as a police officer who relocates from the big city to the remote village of Kuge after a traumatizing event leaves his daughter mute. The show garnered massive local attention, and became the most locally watched produced original series on Disney+ in Japan, which further established Yagira as one of Japan’s biggest actors. Tokyo Journal Editor-in-Chief Anthony Al-Jamie sat down with Yuya Yagira to discuss his work on Gannibal.

TJ: What was your favorite thing about working on the Gannibal series?

YAGIRA: The best thing was, of course, working with the team. Not only with the production team but with the technical staff team [and] the cast. I feel very lucky to have been able to work with these members.

TJ: Who were the producers and director?

YAGIRA: The producers consisted of Mr. [Teruhisa] Yamamoto, who was the producer of my favorite movie, Drive My Car, and the top executive director, Mr. Narita. I felt reassured by the production team members. Mr. [Takamasa] Oe, the screenwriter, also wrote the screenplay for Drive My Car. I feel very lucky to have been able to work with him. I also love movies directed by Mr. [Shinzo] Katayama. So, I felt lucky to have been able to join his team. What also reassured me was the cameraman who remained the central figure for this production. Mr. [Naoya] Ikeda, the cameraman, was wonderful.

TJ: What about the cast?

YAGIRA: I was able to work with Ms. Riho Yoshioka, who played my wife, and Kokone [Shimizu], who played my daughter, and we rehearsed thoroughly. Being able to practice and prepare what was not in the script before starting to film helped greatly with my role. Proactively spending time together [to practice] was wonderful. Mr. Sho Kasamatsu had such a presence and I felt that he really is an adept actor, a rising star who will probably be successful in Japan. I am inclined to think that the cast was made up of rising stars [in the Japanese film industry].

TJ: What do you like most about your character, Daigo Agawa?

YAGIRA: It was my first time playing the role of a police officer. I simply enjoyed it. But I also personally like action scenes, and this drama has lots of action scenes, so it was fun.

TJ: Is there something you don’t like about your character?

YAGIRA: Yes. Daigo’s violence gradually accelerates, and as the story proceeds, his sense of justice starts to become lost and he loses his sanity. It’s frightening to be in an environment where you slowly lose allies, and I would not want to experience that.

TJ: Why did you audition for this part?

YAGIRA: In Japan, it is unlikely that we audition for parts. Instead, it is more likely to receive offers, and once we come to an agreement, we start filming. [When] I received the offer, I saw the members of the team — the screenwriter Mr. Oe, the (production) team members, and the director, Mr. Katayama — and gladly took the offer.

TJ: Do you feel the part suits you well?

YAGIRA: I feel this might be some magic done by Mr. Oe, but the scripts were very easy to act out. The lines were so natural, not exaggerated, which made them easy to perform. I think the part suited me well in such a way. It was a character whom I could perform naturally.

TJ: Why do you think this series will appeal to the Western audience?

YAGIRA: I personally think that Western cinema works. Th eir scale and quality are top-tier in the world. As a cinephile myself, I think in order to establish a presence among such works, the story matters. [This series] has the balance of storytelling and the technical aspects of imagery expressions that aim for a higher level [of quality]. It has been receiving good responses within Japan. So, I am genuinely excited to see what the reactions from the world will turn out to be.

tj

The original article can be found in Issue #282 of the Tokyo Journal.