{"id":110487,"date":"2019-10-14T13:04:09","date_gmt":"2019-10-14T12:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=110487"},"modified":"2023-02-23T13:07:59","modified_gmt":"2023-02-23T13:07:59","slug":"the-terror-infamy-cast-crew-on-mythology-and-life-in-japanese-american-internment-camps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/interviews\/the-terror-infamy-cast-crew-on-mythology-and-life-in-japanese-american-internment-camps\/","title":{"rendered":"The Terror: Infamy cast & crew on mythology and life in Japanese-American internment camps"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first season of AMC’s supernatural drama\u00a0The Terror<\/strong><\/em> was a nightmarish fictionalised account of Captain Sir John Franklin\u2019s lost expedition to the Arctic in the mid-1800s. The second season, subtitled Infamy<\/i><\/strong>, takes place during World War II. This time the boogeyman of the piece is a spectre that haunts a Japanese-American community from Southern California to the internment camps and ultimately to the war in the Pacific.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Terror: Infamy<\/i><\/strong> might be inspired by history and infused with folklore, but it\u2019s all too real for some of the show\u2019s cast, including George Takei. \u201cWhen I was incarcerated, I was five years old, and I was in the camps for four years. The internment was harrowing, and many people became despondent or enraged. They were stressed, and some people went crazy,\u201d explains Takei as we chat on the set in Vancouver, Canada.\u00a0\u201cSome people committed suicide by walking towards the fences, and the guards would shoot them. The Japanese-Americans wanted to put the blame and the onus on the guards as they didn\u2019t want to kill themselves.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere were some people that believed in ghost stories or Kwaidan as we called them in Japanese culture,\u201d Takei continues. \u201cIt intensified and spiritualised the internment experience of these tormented souls, people being wronged, creating that belief in evil powers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Fracturing the hellish reality was something that helped Takei and his sibling get through the ordeal. The actor, who plays Yamato-san, explains: \u201cWe were taken from Los Angeles, relocated two-thirds of the way across the country. My parents told me that we were going on a long vacation to a place called Arkansas. I was excited because Arkansas sounded exotic. For my parents, the reality of the segregated camps was a nightmare, but for me, my real memory of my incarceration was an adventure of discovery. We would hear strange sounds coming from beyond the barbed wire fences. I told my younger brother that the mysterious noises he could hear were dinosaurs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He adds: \u201cWhen I became a teenager I became very curious about my childhood in prison, and I became a voracious reader and learned about the ideals of American democracy. However, I couldn\u2019t reconcile that awful reality with what I knew to be my childhood. Only then was I aware of the terror.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a grizzled actor, and I\u2019m used to sound stages and sets, but the recreations of the barracks really took me back to when we were incarcerated. But, as awful as it could be, there were fond memories,\u201d Takei says. \u201cMy memories were quite different from my parents\u2019 because, for them, it was a haunting, harrowing, and painful experience. I\u2019m always mindful that I\u2019m not the best at articulating the horror of the incarceration that my parents suffered, but it was real.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Derek Mio plays Chester Nakayama, a budding photographer who is forced out of his Terminal Island home and made to live in an internment camp. \u201cChester goes through a lot in this show. He goes from being this innocent to a man in turmoil,\u201d Mio muses as we sit in a side room of a house doubling up as a residence as well as a hospital facility. \u201cHe has this terrible thing happen to him, the world is going crazy, and his girlfriend, Luz, has an abortion using Japanese herbs and special medicine. He feels like that decision is causing these weird occurrences to happen around him and maybe even causing the old country to haunt him. That\u2019s his only way of justifying what is happening, this horror that is following him. That, along with everything that happens in the internment camp, sends him on a nightmarish trajectory.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Luz is played by Cristina Rodlo, someone from a very different cultural background but with traditions of its own. \u201cLuz is Mexican-American, she\u2019s training to become a nurse, she\u2019s very in love with Chester, but because of the culture and time they are living in, they can\u2019t marry,\u201d Rodlo explains. \u201cThey cannot even be seen together. She\u2019s a Latina, and she\u2019s the kind of woman who would do anything for love and for her family. She\u2019s young and a bit naive, and she doesn\u2019t see anything bad about the decisions she has to make. Of course, in reality, it\u2019s not that easy.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Rodlo adds that \u201cthe reality of what happened to these people is so awful. It\u2019s a story that hasn\u2019t been told in this way but has to be told. With the supernatural element, it creates a broader story that I think will make more people want to watch it. I\u2019m from Mexico originally. In school, I studied Mexican history, so we never learned about the internment of Japanese-Americans. That was alien to me, and so were the supernatural elements and spirituality of the Japanese-American culture. What surprised me though was the similarity it bears to some Latin cultures, the attachments to ancestors and spirits.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Takei, who was also a consultant on The Terror: Infamy<\/i><\/strong>, isn\u2019t the only key cast member with a link to the reality of the internments. Mio is a fourth-generation Japanese-American and his great-grandparents were sent to the Manzanar camp in Northern California. \u201cI think that the genius of the whole Terror franchise is this spiritual element,\u201d Mio says. \u201cI really enjoyed the first season. It was an entry point to educate and enlighten people. Perhaps they don\u2019t know about the voyage that happened in the first season or if people don\u2019t know about the Japanese-American internment in this season,\u201d he explains.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cIt is both shocking and not shocking to know that there are still people who are unaware that this happened in America during World War II. It\u2019s not something that was advertised and, in all honesty, it didn\u2019t happen that long ago. There are people like George who went through it and are living history. You hear about Nazi Germany and the concentration camps in Europe. You don\u2019t hear about the internment camps here on our soil that my own family was imprisoned in.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For the second season of AMC\u2019s anthology show, Ridley Scott returns as executive producer. However, The Terror: Infamy <\/strong><\/em>sees Chinese-American Alexander Woo step into the roles of showrunner and co-creator. Fusing the cultures of East and West, with the notion of shape-shifting spirits and unfulfilled souls that need bodies and minds to occupy, is the blood coursing through the 10-part drama\u2019s veins.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a smart concept to take this historical event and this supernatural element, two genres that have a wide audience. You can entertain and educate at the same time,\u201d Woo explains. \u201cIn the first season, there was this beast terrorising these men, but there was also the terror between the men themselves and their psyches. This season, it\u2019s the terror of ghosts from tradition and culture that we\u2019re facing as well as the terror of prejudice. Infamy<\/i><\/strong> has all these different layers going on at the same time.\u00a0And, let\u2019s be honest, you can\u2019t ignore that it is still relevant to what is going on in the world again today.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Authenticity is a critical factor in the effectiveness of Infamy<\/i><\/strong>. It runs through everything from the sets, including the recreation of Japanese pagodas to the full-scale reproduction of the internment camps, to the cultural beats the narrative hits, and even the hiring of the cast and crew. It was almost non-negotiable for Woo. He explains: \u201cThis story is so personally important to Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians because we\u2019re in Vancouver and it happened in this country too. Our first assistant director Jason, his parents were interned in British Columbia. We have a scene at a racetrack where some of these people were originally detained, and his parents were in those stables. I also felt it was vitally important to the history for Japanese-Americans to be played by actors of Japanese descent. That\u2019s something I\u2019m very proud of, and we took a lot of time and effort casting this and went all over the world to make sure we could achieve that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As well as creating an authentic look to the show, getting the language and tones right were also crucial to the show\u2019s effective execution.\u00a0\u201cThe conceit from the very beginning was to use the genre vocabulary, the ghost story and horror vocabulary, as an analogue for the terror of the actual historical experience,\u201d Woo elaborates. \u201cIt was also essential for me, right from the very beginning, be able to tell the story as if you are living in the skin of the people who lived through this. That\u2019s what the horror genre does. You feel the fear. That\u2019s what a really good horror movie does; it makes you feel that kind of fear that the people in the movie are feeling.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Taking the briefest of glances at the titles of a few of the episodes in the show\u2019s season, it is clear that The Terror: Infamy<\/i> <\/strong>means business. With monikers such as All The Demons Are Still In Hell<\/strong>, The Weak Are Meat<\/strong><\/i> and Shatter Like A Pearl<\/i><\/strong>, it\u2019s clear that the darkness is present.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kiki Sukezane is Yuko, a somewhat mysterious character who is originally from Japan and shares a deep attachment to her country\u2019s spiritual traditions. \u201cYuko has no joy in her life, no happiness. It was so hard for me to imagine all the stuff she had been through when I was creating the character, she explains. \u201cI grew up in Japan, and the spiritual element of things was natural for us to think about. We really believe in them, and we believe they are connected to this world. We believe that our ancestors are watching or helping you and other spirits too, not all of them good.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not until the sixth episode that we get to find out a lot about Yuko\u2019s history,\u201d Sukezane says. \u201cUntil then, you really don\u2019t know why she is so brutal. We get to find out what she was like in Japan before she moved to America and what it was in the world that made her so tough, that made her this kind of monster.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

She adds: \u201cThere is no light here for Yuko. Her story is heavy and deep, and I loved that about her. The way the character\u2019s history, as the series goes on, connects to Chester and all the other characters, when the audience gets through those layers, they\u2019re going to really love it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While The Terror: Infamy<\/i> <\/strong>is an original story created by showrunner Woo and co-creator Max Borenstein, there is a circular aspect to the show\u2019s core elements. The series is rooted in the real world history as well as cultural and spiritual influences from Japanese cinema, which, in turn, were influenced by real-world cultural and spiritual forces.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe things that we drew from are the Japanese horror stories, the classic Kwaidan tales and then also, in part, from contemporary Japanese horror films like The Grudge<\/i> <\/strong>and Dark Water<\/i><\/strong>,\u201d Woo reveals. \u201cInfamy<\/i><\/strong> is certainly influenced more by those psychological horror films than the more violent and gory horror films like Audition<\/i><\/strong>. What\u2019s great is that we\u2019re telling the story over ten weeks and that\u2019s a much longer emotional experience than you can get from a movie. You couldn\u2019t do Audition<\/i> <\/strong>over ten weeks because there are only so many body parts you can cut off.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSpreading this story over ten weeks is one of the great luxuries of television,\u201d Woo continues. \u201cHopefully, you can spend the seven days between each episode thinking about the characters, caring about them, being angry with them, or being happy for them, but certainly going on this journey with them. We want the spiritual connection between the audience and the show to be as strong as the one between the spirits and the characters they are watching on screen. If we\u2019ve done our jobs right, you\u2019ll be so deeply invested you\u2019ll feel their fear, the terror.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This article first featured in SciFiNow issue 163.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The Terror: Infamy\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>is currently airing on Mondays on AMC Global in the UK. Get all the latest horror news with every issue of SciFiNow.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The cast and crew of The Terror: Infamy on myths, influences and Japanese-American internment camps<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":110505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[1718,7,207],"tags":[6517],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/tumblr_85545bd49ef3a351ba5782fe36476c0c_e62f34eb_1280.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110487"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127650,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110487\/revisions\/127650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}