FX’s historical drama Shogun has made Emmy records, winning an incredible 14 Creative Arts Emmys last weekend, and breaking the record for the most wins by a single show in one year. This achievement surpasses Game of Thrones, which held the record with 12 wins back in 2015.
During the Emmy Awards ceremony on Sunday night, co-host Daniel Levy mentioned the milestone, joking,
“We haven’t even given out a single award tonight, and yet Shogun has already made Emmy history.”
And the wins didn’t stop there. Shogun added four more awards that night, including Best Actor and Best Actress for Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai, Best Director for Frederick E.O. Toye, and Best Drama Series.
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Both Sanada and Sawai made history as the first Japanese actors to win in their respective categories. Shogun also became the first non-English-language show to win the Emmy for Best Drama. Sanada, who plays the lead role of Lord Yoshii Toranaga, expressed his gratitude in his speech:
“It was an East-meets-West dream project, and Shogun taught me that when people work together, we can create miracles and build a better future.”
Sanada’s co-star, Anna Sawai, won Best Actress for her role as Lady Toda Mariko. She became emotional while accepting her award, thanking Sanada for “opening doors” for actors like her and dedicating the win to her mother.
The Emmy-winning drama is based on James Clavell’s 1975 bestselling novel, Shogun, which was also turned into a popular mini-series in 1980. Unlike the original adaptation, which focused on an English pilot who becomes a samurai, this new version is told primarily from the perspectives of its Japanese characters, and most of the dialogue is spoken in Japanese.
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Toward the end of the night, Shogun took home the Emmy for Best Drama Series, beating other major shows like The Crown and The Morning Show. Creator Justin Marks thanked the show’s executives for trusting in the vision of a subtitled Japanese period piece, despite its high production costs.
Sanada ended the evening by paying tribute to the creators of jidaigeki (period dramas) in Japan, saying, “The passion and dreams we have inherited from you have crossed oceans and borders.”
