Creator/Showrunner J.T. Rogers & Executicve Producer/Series Alan Poul talk to The Inside Reel about approach, evolution, build and subtext in regards to the 2nd season of their crime thriller series: "Tokyo Vice" on Max.
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00:00 [dramatic music]
00:03 [dramatic music]
00:30 - JT, Alan, thank you for creating such a dynamic show,
00:34 but also understanding sort of the sociological
00:38 and existential elements that Jake, you know,
00:41 and Kategorii, you know, Sato, Sam,
00:43 everybody has to go through.
00:45 Can you talk about using sort of that idea of being
00:49 within the context of the show,
00:51 because everybody's trying to be a certain thing,
00:53 but whether they can get to it is another question.
00:56 - Yeah, everybody, the story that we laid out in season one,
01:00 it was always planned to launch into what we see
01:02 in season two from the get-go.
01:04 I wanted to tell a story about this group of characters
01:07 that we would fall in love with, hopefully,
01:09 and deepen, as we'd see the deepening of their lives
01:11 and their struggles, and to find out, you know,
01:13 what is it, each one is different, you know,
01:15 for Jake, it's what does it mean to be drawn
01:17 so inexorably towards these dark forces?
01:19 What does it say about you,
01:20 that even though you're fighting crime, as it were,
01:22 you're also so obsessed with it?
01:23 What does it mean for Sato to be incredible at something
01:26 he's not sure if this is the real family
01:28 he wants to be a part of?
01:29 What does it mean for Samantha to have cut all ties
01:32 with her past and to reinvent herself,
01:34 and then to find out, maybe this is not
01:36 what I thought I was doing?
01:37 I mean, that just creates a sort of emotional connection
01:41 with the audience that we start to care
01:42 about what they're going to do with their lives.
01:45 - Yeah, I think that really the key is,
01:47 although some of the pulse pounding in the show
01:50 can come from somebody suddenly jumping off a roof
01:54 or a sneak attack on a nightclub,
01:56 but really the core of the drama in the show
01:59 is from our characters at the crossroads
02:01 that they continually find themselves at,
02:03 and all of the implications in the decisions
02:06 that they are constantly forced to make.
02:09 - So what exactly do you do all day?
02:11 - I chase down stories.
02:15 - What do you love most about your job?
02:21 - I'd say the unpredictability of it.
02:24 Never knowing what's coming next.
02:28 - And also the context of the culture, of course,
02:31 you know, the aspect of the Japanese culture,
02:33 and obviously, Alan, you speak Japanese,
02:35 but knowing the entire context.
02:37 Actually, Rachel was telling me the other day
02:40 that when she was shooting season one,
02:42 just being on the banks of the river with nobody around,
02:45 it completely changed her perspective
02:47 in a way on the character.
02:49 Could you talk about using the aspects of the culture
02:51 and the expectation versus the acceptance of,
02:54 say, the gaijin in that context of how the story has to flow?
02:59 - Well, the obsession with all of us making the show,
03:02 and I know Alan and I spend endless, endless hours
03:04 on this on set and off set, is authenticity.
03:07 That, you know, you make a show like this
03:09 so that one in 200,000 people watching on TV
03:12 is an ex-cop from the '90s at that precinct
03:15 and goes, "Holy cow, that's how it looked,
03:16 and that's how I spoke."
03:18 And that's what you're looking for.
03:19 And so the constraint of that,
03:21 certainly in the writing and the creative shows,
03:22 is like, what is the most granular,
03:27 subculture Japanese moment of this profession
03:29 at this time, how we can tell the story that way?
03:31 Because then it makes us different from other shows,
03:35 and it makes the actors have something
03:37 they can really sink their teeth into.
03:38 - And it's, I have to sort of watch the show
03:42 through two different lenses.
03:43 There's our joint lens as American television makers,
03:47 and then there's the lens that I have to borrow
03:49 from my education and experience
03:50 of trying to see through Japanese eyes
03:52 and making sure nothing seems weird.
03:53 And of course, that's always done in close collaboration
03:56 with our Japanese producers
03:58 and our Japanese department heads and crew.
04:00 And it's always, the show looks slightly different
04:05 through the two different lenses,
04:07 but we need to constantly make sure
04:08 that it is working for both sets of audiences.
04:10 And that involves a lot of labor on all of our part
04:14 that many American companies would not consider it
04:17 cost-efficient to engage in.
04:20 (woman screaming)
04:22 - Jack, you did not come to Tokyo in pursuit of one man.
04:27 There are other stories, other crimes to be exposed.
04:33 That is your job.
04:36 - You know, and one of our Japanese producers,
04:39 or often Alan, will come up to me and say,
04:41 "I know this has been translated, re-translated, polished,
04:44 but I also know the English,
04:45 and I know what you intended, JT,
04:47 and there's some essence that is not."
04:49 And then we'll, okay, JT's gonna perform.
04:52 (laughing)
04:53 What's supposed to happen here?
04:55 And let's, and it's, I mean,
04:56 everyone cares so deeply about getting it right.
04:59 It's really, it is both exhausting and exhilarating.
05:02 - It's funny because JT, as a dramatist,
05:05 and as a dramatist born of the theater originally,
05:07 that he writes a tremendous amount of subtext
05:11 into his dialogue,
05:12 and subtext is the hardest thing to translate.
05:15 And sometimes I'll always look at the Japanese translation
05:18 and say, "Yeah, that looks right."
05:19 And then in terms of finessing the dialogue,
05:21 we have a team of Japanese collaborators
05:25 led by Ken Watanabe,
05:26 who make sure to approve every line of dialogue.
05:28 But even then, sometimes you get on the set
05:30 and I'll watch the scene and I'll say,
05:32 "Oh my God, I know what JT intended."
05:34 And the subtext is not in the Japanese line.
05:36 And then we have to call a quick huddle
05:38 and go in and adjust it
05:39 and make sure the nuance is coming through on both sides.
05:41 - If you saw anything that can help me,
05:45 now's my chance.
05:46 - I saw a tattoo.
05:47 (dramatic music)
05:50 - You know I want something.
05:51 - Chase it.
05:53 Tell no one.
05:54 (speaking in foreign language)
06:00 - And on top of that, it's the things that are not said.
06:08 I mean, obviously JT with the words, it's so important,
06:10 but the subtext in between the lines.
06:12 I mean, you were talking about this,
06:14 the one club sequence that happens,
06:16 like I think it's mid-season on this one.
06:18 I don't want to get too much about that,
06:20 but the thing is, is that there's so much going on
06:22 between somebody like Sam or Sheeda
06:25 and everything that's being said in between the lines.
06:27 Can you talk about finding those moments,
06:30 finding those things?
06:31 Because you have to have the right directing,
06:33 but then you also have to have the right conversations.
06:35 Even Sho was saying this the other day,
06:37 it's about how he functions in every single different scene,
06:42 because it depends on who he's interacting with.
06:44 It has to do with where his psyche is.
06:46 - Yeah, I mean, I think that, I mean,
06:49 we do as you often do in television is the kickoff
06:54 for the prep of every episode
06:56 is what we call a tone meeting,
06:58 which is a meeting that usually goes three hours
07:00 or sometimes even longer in which we sit with JT
07:04 and with the director of the episode
07:06 and go through every single scene,
07:09 every single line of the script
07:11 and make sure that every layer of the author's intention
07:15 is being adequately communicated to the director.
07:17 And then it's the director's job to bring that alive
07:20 and elicit that in working with the actors on the set.
07:24 - And then, you know, one of the reasons you have,
07:25 I or Alan have to be on set always
07:28 is no matter how brilliant the directors are,
07:31 we have terrific directors on this.
07:32 They're not gonna know
07:33 'cause they're working on their two hour block.
07:35 I'll sometimes say, you know what?
07:36 I really need a photo.
07:37 Remember what we talked about?
07:38 I really do need a photo of a watch there
07:42 because in four hours, when you're back home,
07:46 we're gonna shoot C, four hours of storytelling,
07:48 you know, four hour episodes later.
07:49 And I'm gonna, you know, so it's this very,
07:53 you have to keep the entire puzzle in your head at all times
07:56 and have people like Alan's like,
07:57 what do you, you know, do you think that works?
07:59 Should we do it again?
08:01 But it's been, you know, it's a collaboration
08:03 with everyone making the show together.
08:05 (dramatic music)
08:08 (dramatic music)
08:11 - Watch yourself.
08:13 Don't be stupid.
08:15 - Don't be stupid.
08:16 - I'll have to remember that.
08:18 (dramatic music)
08:21 - Now, between like, you know, season one, season two,
08:27 obviously two very different sort of shooting elements
08:29 that you were in two different times.
08:31 But can you talk about the evolution of the characters
08:34 between the origin point and now where they're going
08:37 because now they've lived enough lives
08:39 within this environment,
08:40 especially Jake and Category, you know, as well,
08:44 because now they have to react in a different way
08:46 than normally they would.
08:47 That's just the progression of any show,
08:49 whether it be the newsroom,
08:50 whether it be Six Feet Under,
08:51 whether it be The Place. - Yeah, I think it is.
08:53 It is, it's just the act,
08:54 I mean, this is the joy of long,
08:55 you know, long form television, you know,
08:58 is the child of long, you know,
09:01 long form novels of 200 years ago,
09:03 where you fall, the audience falls into it
09:05 and gets to know it.
09:06 But in our case,
09:07 it's really about having really good actors
09:09 who start to wear their characters like a second skin.
09:12 And in say, Rachel's case and Ansel's case,
09:16 to really learn Japanese, you know,
09:19 which frees me up in the writing of it
09:21 and frees our directors up, Alan at the forefront,
09:24 to try different things with language, with character.
09:27 But it's really about everyone getting to know
09:29 who these people are, those of us making the show.
09:31 - I think something that is good to keep in mind
09:34 is one of the things that is so unique
09:37 about the character of Jake and about Ansel as Jake
09:40 is that it starts off as a classic fish out of water story.
09:43 He's the gaijin in the middle
09:45 of this Japanese newspaper world,
09:47 but he's a fish out of water who's already in the water.
09:51 So it's a very different person.
09:52 He already speaks the language fluently.
09:54 He's already lived in Japan.
09:56 He's already been through Japanese university,
09:58 but he doesn't know what he doesn't know.
10:02 He thinks he knows more than he does.
10:03 And so it's about with this being in the water
10:06 and this unique set of skills about him discovering,
10:09 particularly in season one,
10:10 all the things that he actually doesn't understand.
10:12 (speaking in foreign language)
10:16 - Who knows what he'll do
10:23 if Tozawa thinks we have this information?
10:26 - Maybe you should lay low.
10:28 - And my last question, you guys, thank you very much.
10:30 Thank you for all your insight and for making a show,
10:32 not an easy show to make,
10:33 especially in Japan and with all these subtext elements.
10:38 But my last question has to do
10:39 with perspective and perception,
10:41 because obviously you're looking through certain eyes
10:43 of many characters, but it is the voice of Jake
10:46 that's sort of propelling us.
10:47 Can you talk about perspective and perception,
10:49 whether we're talking about newspaper writing,
10:51 about telling the truth, but almost the whole truth,
10:54 about protecting sources,
10:56 but also looking within the Yakuza
10:58 versus people who are outside the Yakuza.
11:01 Can you talk about that perspective and perception
11:03 and how that reflects in the voice, per se, of the series?
11:07 - Well, that's a great question.
11:09 I mean, for me, the show was always intended to be,
11:12 the show is about, pay attention
11:16 'cause things aren't what you see.
11:17 So the pilot, you think it's just gonna be a story
11:19 about Jake Adelstein.
11:20 All of a sudden, the characters you met in episode,
11:22 they were ancillary, walking through,
11:23 washing their hands next to Jake Sato in the bathroom.
11:26 All of a sudden, you realize, oh, wait,
11:27 we're following all these threads.
11:29 And so as the show builds out,
11:31 Jake becomes the first among many of an ensemble.
11:34 And so it's important to me because that allows me
11:37 to be seeing the perspective of a young Yakuza,
11:39 of a hostess, of our Western reporter,
11:41 of the brother of Sato in season two,
11:45 of the new detective who works with Katagiri.
11:47 And so to me, it's always interesting
11:49 that perspective of the show becomes the collage
11:53 of all these different points of view.
11:55 And then the reader, or in this case, the viewer,
11:58 gets to decide what it all means.
11:59 It's not for me to tell you what it means.
12:01 It's for me to present it.
12:02 - But I think it is, in terms of what you're saying, Tim,
12:06 that the show does exist in a gray area
12:09 in that all of the worlds, the world of the newspapers,
12:12 the world of the police, and even the world of the Yakuza
12:14 are worlds in which there are very clearly
12:16 circumscribed rules.
12:18 And for our main characters in each of those worlds,
12:20 they have to learn that there are times
12:25 when the rules must be obeyed,
12:26 and there are times when you must butt up against the rules,
12:28 and that that can sometimes create a moral quandary
12:33 for the characters, and that's when we most enjoy
12:35 seeing them struggle with that.
12:37 And there's a line, and correct me if I'm angle at JT,
12:40 that comes up much later in the season,
12:42 but where one of the characters says
12:44 that there are times when the moral choice
12:46 is not the right choice.
12:48 And in one way, this entire season
12:51 is heading towards that big realization.
12:54 - Today, a man told me he'd kill me
12:57 if I don't stop writing.
12:58 - I think you gotta keep going.
13:00 - Be careful.
13:01 - Other people are relying on you now.
13:04 You are the way this ends.
13:06 (man screams)
13:09 (dramatic music)
13:11 (gun cocks)
13:19 (dramatic music)
13:22 (gun fires)
13:25 (gun fires)
13:27 (whooshing)
13:29 [BLANK_AUDIO]