Tony Award-winning playwright J.T. Rogers knew why he wanted to be part of a TV series adaptation of Jake Adelstein’s time as a crime beat reporter in Japan. It was easy. The pair had been best friends since they met in High School. For Ansel Elgort, playing Adelstein, the first non-Japanese staff writer at the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, was just part of the appeal. The fact “Tokyo Vice” was effectively a period piece set during the ’90s was the kicker.
During an interview with The Playlist last week, Elgort recalls, “I remember the first time that J.T. and I spoke on the phone, one of the things I said was, ‘Oh yeah, Tokyo is incredible, but also ’90s Tokyo, right? That was before they had iPhones and cell phones at all. That’s so cool, no iPhones.’ And J.T. said, ‘Do you know anything about the story?’ And I said, ‘No, but it’s Tokyo and they didn’t have iPhones.’ He said, ‘Well, read the book and then let’s talk again.'”
After fully committing, Elgort spent weeks learning as much Japanese as possible for the role. The scripts find both Elgort and co-star Rachel Keller often speaking their lines in Japanese while their Asian co-stars reply in English. The series was just six days into shooting its first episode when the pandemic hit in March 2020. The silver lining was it provided Elgort with months of downtime to focus on improving his Japanese. He also immersed himself in the language and Tokyo itself when production ramped back up in November 2020.
“The luxury of living in Tokyo, especially during a pandemic when there’s hardly anyone around who’s not a Japanese person,” Elgort says. “So, I was at Yoyogi Park playing basketball with the kids who didn’t speak any English, and then we’d go out and eat together. And a lot of the actors, Ito Hideaki, he hardly speaks English. So, we would hang out and meet in the middle, but also speak a lot of Japanese. And he knew how important it was for me to be practicing my Japanese. A lot of the people who I was with there who were Japanese were very generous in helping me. And I always tried to go out to eat with our art director, who spoke no English. And sometimes we would get a little lost or have nothing to say at certain times, but usually, be able to push through. And I would just sometimes make mistakes, say something that didn’t make sense, but I wanted to immerse myself in that way and I wanted to challenge myself with the language in that way.”
Over the course of our discussion, Rogers and Elgort discuss what Mann brought to the project and much more.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
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The Playlist: J.T., what made you want to tackle this?
J.T. Rogers: I got involved because Jake Adelstein, the real Jake who wrote the memoir that inspired the series, has been my friend since we met in drivers ed in high school in central Missouri. And then a number of years ago, his address book of his nearest and dearest was stolen by a Japanese mobster that was trying to threaten Jake, and I was one of the people he called and threatened. And so that’s how I was pulled into the story.
The Playlist: Ansel, when you got the script, did you know JT had such a connection? And what was your reaction to your character having to speak so much Japanese?
Ansel Elgort: When I first spoke to J.T.J, yes, he told me that he knew the real Jake Adelstein. And I, to be honest, I took for granted how much work it would be. Because at first, I thought, “It’s fine. You know, I’ll just phonetically learn the lines.” But then as time went on after phonetically learning them, I realized, “Well I don’t have much freedom here if I only learn them phonetically, because how am I going to know where to put the stress?” Or if I learn one way to deliver the lines, that’s kind of a no-no when you’re acting. You want to have the freedom to be able to play it differently. So then I realize, “O.K., I’ve got to really try to learn this language as much as I can in the short period of time we have.” Luckily, after one week of filming, we got shut down. So terribly, but luckily. Then we had a whole new prep period and I got to do a lot more Japanese training, and that prepared me a lot more. But yeah, still now to this day I’m still taking Japanese just case we were to make more of these episodes. Knowing the language is definitely an important part of who this guy is.
J.T. Rogers: Ansel got so good that we could have conversations on set and he’d say, “You know what, I know you wrote this monologue in English. Can I do it in Japanese?” And I’d go, “Yeah.” And then we’d be like, “Oh, what if we tried this too?” And then in the edit, I was able to make scenes fluidly going back with characters speaking Japanese to English in the way that real friends who speak multiple languages do. We would call it Spanglish, perhaps, in New York, what the equivalent would be in Tokyo. So, it really created authenticity and it was one of the unexpected bonuses by having our actors led by Ansel. But many of the actors learn a foreign language, many Japanese actors spoke English for the first time and vice versa to have a real bilingual production.
The Playlist: Ansel, how comfortable did you feel in your Japanese by the end of shooting?
Ansel Elgort: I was there and trying to immerse myself as much as possible. The luxury of living in Tokyo, especially during a pandemic when there’s hardly anyone around who’s not a Japanese person. So, I was at Yoyogi Park playing basketball with the kids who didn’t speak any English, and then we’d go out and eat together. And a lot of the actors, Ito Hideaki, he hardly speaks English. So, we would hang out and meet in the middle, but also speak a lot of Japanese. And he knew how important it was for me to be practicing my Japanese. A lot of the people who I was with there who were Japanese were very generous in helping me. And I always tried to go out to eat with our art director, who spoke no English. And sometimes we would get a little lost or have nothing to say at certain times, but usually, be able to push through. And I would just sometimes make mistakes, say something that didn’t make sense, but I wanted to immerse myself in that way and I wanted to challenge myself with the language in that way.
The Playlist: J.T., I have not read the book, but it sounds like it takes place in 1993 when the real Jake got his job at the newspaper. What made you decide to set it in ’99? And I’m curious for Ansel, just a follow up to his answer, was the idea of having a show set in this sort of period, which is a period film at this point, was that part of the appeal?
JT Rogers: Yeah, the memoir, as a good memoir does, or most, covers I think maybe 20 years almost, or certainly 15 years. And it starts in ’93, and with Jake’s blessing I invented and selected, combined, and hopefully made rich for a visual storytelling medium, but we set it in the late ’90s, one, because that period is really fascinating to me in Japan, but also because I wanted something that was close to the modern era but still what we would call on set, pre-iPhones so that it really was still a city where even lifelong residents could get lost in the byways of the back roads and alleys of the city, sort of as a metaphor for what the show is about. And also practically you want to create problems. If Jake can pick up an iPhone and just figure out where the problem is, end of drama. I want my leading man to be like, “Ah,” that’s an audience for all the characters, or constantly having to struggle against that. So, that’s another reason we kept it period, as we say.
Ansel Elgort: Yeah, I remember the first time that JT and I spoke on the phone, one of the things I said was, “Oh yeah, Tokyo is incredible, but also ’90s Tokyo, right? That was before they had iPhones and cell phones at all. That’s so cool, no iPhones.” And JT said, “Do you know anything about the story?” And I said, “No, but it’s Tokyo and they didn’t have iPhones.” He said, “Well, read the book and then let’s talk again.” [Laughs.]
The Playlist: Ansel, I’m assuming at some point you met Jake. Was there anything he told you about his life working either at the newspaper or dealing with the police that you felt helped you with the role?
Ansel Elgort: Yeah. Just hearing from him, one, how much of an outsider he was, but also that he was also embraced. Then observing him and realizing how much of a rule-breaker he is. Also reading his book and bringing that to the character.
The Playlist: J.T., he’s your friend, you knew his story, but was there anything he asked that you specifically to keep in or not to?
J.T. Rogers: You know, actually, no. The one thing we both agreed on, sort of independently came up with the idea that there were so many interesting small parts. If I want to use fiction writing, it’s a memoir of female characters very important in the book. Rinko Kikuchi plays a really central female journalist, mentor, and boss, an important character whose life would come enmeshed with. He was delighted that I wanted to do that. But really the only thing he asked for was to be authentic. Please, please, please be authentic. And he was very helpful. I could come to him constantly all through the writing and onset and call and say, “Would the coffee cup go here?” But he was hands-off, to his great credit. And it was a real challenge for me to be worthy of that, was I could do whatever I wanted as long as it was authentic. Because we have a long relationship and he knows my work and his work, he trusted me, which was a real honor.
The Playlist: Michael Mann directed the pilot. Can you speak to what you thought he brought to the series?
Ansel Elgort: Yeah, Michael Mann is great as a director. I always find his movies are incredibly immersive. Like J.T .was saying, real authentic feeling. He prepped himself. And he always said so much of the movie is made in prep, and he thought of his pilot as like making a movie. And he had me totally immersed in journalism school. And first I started in LA, I had a retired private investigator who used to work for the LA Times put me through a journalism course for like a week in LA in his office. And then I went actually out onto the ground in LA with police reports and then went and got quotes and tried and wrote up the article the way that you would if you were a crime journalist. Then when we got to Japan, same thing now with actually with Japanese journalists. He made sure that I was as prepared as possible with language. He wanted me to do nine hours a day of Japanese, but I ended up just only doing four hours a day of Japanese, which was still a very good amount to do. He wanted me to be in Aikido class where it was not in English. He wanted me to feel like a fish out of water. He wanted me to get that immersive experience. And that way when I was there and I was being a journalist, I also could feel, “This is authentic,” or, “This isn’t.” And as an actor, I could make sure that my performance was immersive and authentic.
“Tokyo Vice” debuts on HBO Max on Thursday.