“Hopefully COVID-19 is a Once-in-a-Lifetime Event”
Canadian actor and playwright Hiro Kanagawa on working through the pandemic.
Photo by Farah Nosh.
Hiro Kanagawa is one of the most recognizable faces in Canadian television. His on-screen accomplishments, impressive as they are, make up only the tip of the iceberg. Kanagawa is a well-known playwright and story editor. His play Indian Arm, an adaptation of Ibsen’s Little Eyolf set in British Columbia, won both the Jessie Richardson Theatre Award and the Governor General’s Award for English-language Drama.
Kanagawa is as ubiquitous as ever, appearing on stage, on television, in film, and now on Apple TV’s See and Facebook Watch’s Limetown. For a writer and actor who has worked steadily for the better part of three decades, we check in with him on how the pandemic has impacted him, and if he has found himself with more writing time as a result of the lockdowns.
British Columbia, where you live and work, was initially touted as a success story in how the provincial government handled the pandemic. But we are now seeing quite a large rise in cases. How is that affecting you as a performer who works both on stage and screen. Had plays and productions been slated to resume, only to be shut down again?
I think BC is still doing well compared to other jurisdictions in North America. Some of the increase in our daily COVID-19 numbers really can be attributed to increased testing. Our positivity rate remains quite low: below 2%. As a result, film and television production has started up in earnest. Live theatre, too, has started up again, albeit with strict limitations on audience size. Having said that, the situation could quickly get out of hand. I have had a massive amount of work postponed: development of two full-length plays, a lead role in a video game, a supporting lead role in a streaming series, a supporting lead in a play.
If I dwell on everything that’s been put off, it gets a little depressing. But I have faith it will all come back—in fact, the plans are already in place. And I’m writing this having just arrived in Winnipeg where I’ll be working on a movie for the next month, despite the elevated coronavirus numbers here as well.
The reality is, the cast and crew are tested twice a week and we are able to work with strict social distancing measures in place, so we are in an infinitely safer situation than a lot of industries that are more essential but unfortunately don’t get the same care and support.
Despite being one of the more recognizable faces in Canadian television, you are also an award-winning playwright. Has the pandemic given you an unforeseen windfall of free time which you have been able to put towards your writing?
Until late summer I certainly had vast amounts of time to write and more opportunity to write short pieces because various theatre companies were commissioning short works specifically to present online or in socially-distanced contexts.
During those first four or five months of the pandemic, I wrote a short play to be performed at home for Boca del Lupo Theatre, a radio drama for Expect Theatre, a video for Bard on the Beach, and also presented excerpts from works-in-progress for Soulpepper Theatre and the Arts Club.
In the past few weeks, the development process for two full-length plays I was writing pre-COVID has returned as has screen acting. In addition to this acting gig in Winnipeg, I’m confident a couple of other roles are going to fall into place. And various workshops for the two full-length plays are already scheduled for 2021 and beyond. So it will be a juggling act going forward. Looking back, things never ground to a complete halt for me, but it was still an opportunity to write a variety of short works which I never would have written otherwise.
“I’ve learned over the years to be a very efficient writer. I don’t spend hours staring at a blank page. If anything, all that life experience informs my writing and makes it richer rather than being an impediment.”
The Vancouver area has been called “Hollywood North” since the nineties, and your career began there at the beginning of that decade. Can you think of any moment in the industry’s history that is similar to this one?
No. There was a brief panic and stoppage during the writers’ strike several years ago, but it was a blip. Hopefully COVID-19 is a once-in-a-lifetime event.
After your play Indian Arm won both the Jessie Richardson Theatre Award and the Governor General’s Award for English-language Drama, did you find your writing competing with your performing in terms of time? Does your desire to write compete with the desire to perform?
I feel like I always have more than enough time to write because it’s rare that I’m on set acting every day for weeks at a time. Even if I’m in a play, that’s usually about a 6- or 7-week commitment: 3 weeks rehearsal, 3 or 4 weeks of shows.
And once a show goes up, I typically have all day free until 6 or 7 p.m. The GG award has certainly led to my receiving two major commissions for new full-length plays, but one is basically complete now and I’m sure I’ll have the time to write the next one in the coming months.
If there is any competition between acting and writing, it will arise from me having access to better quality acting roles. Those roles will require more preparation, more time actually on set, and generally more attention, focus, and creative energy.
Since we’re on the topic of things keeping me from writing, the main thing is family. On any given day, I spend hours raising my kids: driving them to school, cooking meals, coaching on my son’s football team, hanging out, etc. (I have also done a lot of home-schooling of my daughter during this time.) And then, my wife and I need time alone together, too.
Thankfully, I don’t actually feel any of this is in “competition” with writing. I’ve learned over the years to be a very efficient writer, I don’t spend hours staring at a blank page. If anything, all that life experience informs my writing and makes it richer rather than being some sort of impediment. If you think your family is getting in the way of you being an artist, I feel sorry for you. You’re neither an artist nor a good spouse and parent.
Although you have acted in many science fiction franchises and series based on comic books, your screenwriting credits tend to be dramas rooted in the real world. Do you prefer to write and shape stories grounded in reality and why? Or would you prefer to write something more fantastic?
I’m certainly not drawn to genre writing, and if I was to write something more “fantastic” I’m pretty sure it would tend toward surrealism or magic realism as opposed to science fiction. I think the best science fiction is quite cerebral and philosophical—and I am not actually either.
A lot of science fiction these days is also fairly political in a dystopian, allegorical way, and I do not wish to speak explicitly or allegorically about politics in my works of fiction. In the end, I suppose the subject of regular people at the kitchen sink is plenty fantastic for me. I don’t know what I would gain by putting those people on a spaceship or in the year 2520.
What is it about such roles—sci-fi or fantasy—that you find most challenging?
The special effects prosthetics!
“It is important for people of all ethnicities and orientations to see themselves represented and have their experiences shared.”
As both a writer and an actor, do you ever find yourself second guessing the scripts that you are asked to work with?
Yes, constantly!
Now that we are seeing a wider field in terms of representation and roles, is there a story that you would like to be a part of, or see, on screen?
On one hand, it is important for people of all ethnicities, cultures and orientations to see themselves represented and have stories of their experience represented authentically.
On the other, it is equally important that under-represented artists are freed from always having to play “diverse” roles and tell only those stories. I’ve been fortunate to have had many opportunities to play non race-specific characters and I hope that continues.
I would love the opportunity to authentically portray the Asian experience, as opposed to a white-washed or “Orientalist” fantasy version of the Asian experience. Side bar: we need to see Asians in outer space! We are conspicuously under-represented in the Star Wars, Star Trek, and Marvel universes, for instance. I think it’s important that Asian kids see more Asian faces in these massive pop culture franchises. The Star Wars example has always been especially galling to me, insofar as the plot of the original Star Wars movie was lifted from a Kurosawa samurai film and Darth Vader and the Jedi are basically samurai. Darth Vader’s helmet is a samurai helmet! There should be legions and legions of Asian Jedi!