Shōgun star Hiroyuki Sanada confirms which major Hollywood franchises he would want to be a part of, and why Star Wars is at the top of the list.

Shōgun star Hiroyuki Sanada opens up about what franchise he wants to join. He also knows he would fit right into the Star Wars universe.

In an interview with Variety published to X, Sanada is asked whether he would take on a role with either the Star Wars or Marvel franchise. “Yeah. All of them,” Sanada responded. “Especially Star Wars. I’m a big fan.” When asked if he had a favorite character from the franchise, Sanada said, “I cannot say one, because [the] world itself is amazing.”

Shōgun is FX’s new series that brings fans back to the Samurai genre, yet it is also deeply connected to another popular Western series. Shōgun premiered on Hulu and FX on February 27, 2024. Based on James Clavell’s 1975 novel of the same name, Shōgun is set in the 1500s and stars Sanada as Lord Yoshii Toranaga, the lord of Kanto and one of the five reigning Regents of Japan, alongside Cosmo Jarvis’ Pilot-Major John Blackthorne, an English pilot sent to establish trade negotiations with Japan who ends up being held captive along with his crew. Currently, the series is seven episodes into a ten-episode first season.

Shōgun premiered on Hulu and FX on February 27, 2024. Based on James Clavell’s 1975 novel of the same name, Shōgun is set in the 1500s and stars Sanada as Lord Yoshii Toranaga, the lord of Kanto and one of the five reigning Regents of Japan, alongside Cosmo Jarvis’ Pilot-Major John Blackthorne, an English pilot sent to establish trade negotiations with Japan who ends up being held captive along with his crew. Currently, the series is seven episodes into a ten-episode first season.

Shōgun Has Earned Great Acclaim

Director Jonathan van Tulleken previously eschewed comparisons between Shōgun and HBO’s Game of Thrones, stating that a better comparison for the former would be Succession or House of Cards. “Truly it is a character piece and it is about this intrigue. This is a dangerous world where violence can come out of nowhere but the real danger is in the machinations,” van Tulleken said at the time. “A conversation can be as dangerous as anything else.”

On the subject of a potential second season of the hit miniseries, Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks, the creators of Shōgun, discussed where the series would go without any further source material to pull from. “We took the story to the end of the book and put a period at the end of that sentence,” Marks said. “We love how the book ends; it was one of the reasons why we both knew we wanted to do it — and we ended in exactly that place.” Kondo added, “We also made this show so long ago because of the long tail of post-production on it. It’s not like a normal TV series, where if we were in a situation like this promoting it, we wouldn’t just be in the writers’ room already, we’d be on set shooting Season 2 by now.”

Shogun is streaming now on Hulu and airing on FX. New episodes premiere every Tuesday through April 23.