An interview with director Edward Zwick - from the L.A. press junket (courtesy of Nu Metro Film Distribution (South Africa)

QUESTION: Was it an interesting challenge to direct both English and Japanese actors?
ED ZWICK: The truth is Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe are both extraordinary actors and I had great help. There was a woman translator named Yoko Nara Hashi who runs a theater company in Tokyo, Japan. She had studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and is completely bi-cultural. But the real truth is, there is only one language among actors and that is the script, and the authenticity and emotion of it. The fact that I wrote it myself was a huge help because I could understand the nuance even if I didn't understand the actual syllable, maybe not unlike what it was like in the 1920s to direct silent movies.

Q: It must have been fascinating to cast a movie where you didn't know all the actors or their theater work. What's that been like?
EZ: Exactly, it was fascinating. I've been back and forth to Japan many times now and the response to the movie has been so wonderful. One response in particular was very interesting. They said that we cast such an interesting combination of actors who might not ordinarily be together. That's because I wasn't subject to some of the expectations in Japan. For example, Hiroyuki Sanada is really like the Tom Cruise of Japan. For him to take a supporting part to Ken Watanabe is really generous and extraordinary. Ken, whose work has really only now been revealed to Japan, had done more television. Koyuki had done some television, smaller theater jobs and some modeling. The little boy playing Higen had played in the Tokyo production of "The Lion King." So in casting, I just used my own naïve appreciation of these actors with regard to this story.

Q: Has it changed the way you cast in America now? Will you be more open-minded?
EZ: I've always been pretty open-minded actually. Elizabeth Perkins was the first part in "About Last Night" and Matt Damon, who I met as a writer when he brought me the script to "Good Will Hunting," I cast in "Courage Under Fire." Certainly it's true of people like Evan Rachel Wood in "Once and Again." I've always done it the same way, which is to bring the people into the room, think about the words and try to be open.

Q: You do great stuff with contemporary work but you keep going back to the late 19^th century. What's the appeal there?
EZ: I'm drawn to that, it's true. I think the word in Japanese is Kadoki, which means transition. The idea of a time in transition - the coming of the new and modern and the end of something else - is extremely moving to me. This was a moment in which America and the world changed for all time and there just seems to be a trove of stories set in that time. But there's also maybe another reason, which is that it was an exceedingly literate time. It was a time in which people were willing to talk about ideas in a particular way. Philosophy had great relevance to people's lives.

Q: One of the big themes in a lot of your films is accounting for one's own life.  Can you talk about why that theme is so resonant for you?
EZ: That's true.  I look at modern life and I see people not taking responsibility for their lives. The temptation to blame, to find external causes to one's own issues is something that is particularly modern. I know that personally I find that sense of responsibility interesting.

Q: What exactly are the Samurai fighting for? It seems like they were against the way Japan needed to go?
EZ: Yes, there is indeed a legitimate case to be made for the fact that the Japanese sensed the imperial impulse all around them and they needed to modernize. On the other hand, there is the extraordinary beauty and understanding of the Samurai culture. You cannot help but feel that when you go to Japan now, modernization, the obliteration of anything natural in the landscape and the deprivation of a whole aesthetic, has been a loss. I wanted to tell that story.

Q: We've seen grand scale in your films before, but nothing like this, particularly with the climactic battle scene. Was there a "Take Two" on that battle scene?
EZ: There was maybe a "Take Two" but definitely not a third one. There is a moment sometimes when you direct and you say, "Can you just move those six hundred guys over there? I think I want them to line up." You've had these long days and weeks of preparation and then filming starts and you say, "Wait!" There was none of that in this film. It's like when a big ship tries to turn around. This was like a huge ocean liner that needs two miles to actually come around. So you accept that's how it's going to be.

Q: The Japanese spirit is, in a sense, the equivalent of the cowboy way here in America.
EZ: So I've made an Eastern.

Q: Because of that, the movie seemed nostalgic despite all the action and fighting.  Would you agree?
EZ: What is interesting is that Akira Kurosawa's idol was John Ford. So maybe I'm standing on the shoulders of that tradition. Am I a nostalgic person? No, I actually think I'm pretty forward-looking. 

Q: You have to trust your actors to do physical work and act at the same time when they are doing these action sequences. Was that the case for this film?
EZ: We had a lot of conversations about that. Pure action for its own sake doesn't really interest me that much. In the service of a character and a story, I'm desperately interested in it. I don't particularly like to have Hong Kong wirework or people swinging swords endlessly and no one getting hurt. I find that's antithetical to the emotional involvement in a piece. But we did talk about what was the intention of the character in that moment. We tried to include that in the action.

Q: No one getting hurt certainly must have been an issue on this one?
EZ: Yes. There was a stuntman in a rehearsal somewhere three miles away from the set who fell off a horse and fractured his kneecap. That was the only injury.

Q: Did you hold your breath in every action sequence, especially with Tom Cruise?
EZ: Yes. Tom Cruise wanted to do it all himself and he devoted himself to that. He's aware enough of his limitations and abilities for me to trust him. But you still hold your breath because a horse shies, an explosion goes wrong or some crazy stunt person gets adrenal and changes the choreography. It's all dangerous in that way. I was also afraid that Tom might hurt somebody else. It's all terrifying in that regard.

Q:  There are some violent moments in the movie. What is the line that you were trying to seek?
EZ: It's a fair question. How does one ever describe taste? There is that which I believe to be gratuitous that I was trying to resist. On the other hand, there needed to be a certain level of ferocity because the Samurai believed that violence and the imminence of death is an important part of the culture. It was a society that tried to prepare itself for death at any moment so as to experience the ephemera of life, and taste the presence and sweetness of life. I had to be unafraid of that. There's no empirical law that describes where those limits are.

Q: So what would you like people to know about this film?
EZ: I go to the movies to be transported, to be taken on a journey in my fantasy and emotions. I want to surrender to the sense of adventure and romance. I mean romance in the true sense of what it meant -- not just meaning love -- but a new experience of something and the discovery and delight in that discovery. I know that a good number of people who have seen this movie had a very visceral and emotional response to it. We all go to the movies to be moved. Sometimes when we weep in the movies we weep for ourselves or for a life unlived. Or we even go to the movies because we want to resist the emotion that's there in front of us. I think there is always a catharsis that I look for and that makes the movie experience worthwhile. I think this movie has it.

Q: Why should we see this movie knowing we are rooting for Tom Cruise?
EZ: I think you see from Tom Cruise a performance that he's never given before. I think it is deeply internal, still and very emotional.

Q: Between "The Last Samurai" and "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," we've seen a couple of films this season that had people saying they don't make them like that anymore.
EZ: Well, apparently they do.

Q: What has the reaction been from audiences in Japan?
EZ: Phenomenal. I cannot tell you how gratifying that's been. We had the first press screening in Japan last night and the reports were just remarkable. I showed the film to the Japanese Ambassador to the United States a couple of weeks ago and then he insisted on creating an evening at the consulate in New York where he invited his friends - serious Japan academics from universities like Columbia, Harvard and Yale, bankers, members of the Metropolitan Museum and Japan Society. It's been a very gratifying response.

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