Fall Preview
A cautiously optimistic guide to an (almost) normal season.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Join us at Vulture Festival for an extremely cool preview of the new Cowboy Bebop.
He had to get surgery and spent the ensuing months of physical therapy thinking about his character.
I dont think Ive ever thought about a single role more.
He generally hates disappointing people, and he can sense the expectations around embodying many viewers first anime crush.
Still, he put on the blue suit, grew out his hair, and trained relentlessly.
To clarify, the chance was me failing.
I rereadour old interviewfrom 2016.Our meet-cute.
Yeah, one of the best dates Ive had.[Laughs.]
Me too, man.
I get the sense that there was probably some dieting and working out.[Laughs.]
The regimen was to become functionally athletic rather than show-horse athletic.
But, yeah, I had to watch what I ate.
I did have to take my shirt off in the first episode, which was really stressful.
Was it?Yeah.
I mean, you get really self-conscious.
I guess Id rather eat the sandwich at lunch, thats all.
When Iwatched the anime, I was like,I wish I could have invented this.
Were you a fan of the original animeCowboy Bebop?I didnt know it.
I calledAneesh Chaganty, who directedSearching,to talk about it.
Are you aware of a show calledCowboy Bebop?
Ive got this offer to do an adaptation of this anime.
I remember him telling me: You have to do it.
I didnt realize what a big deal it was.
What made you say yes?I dont know, it was a real gut thing.
I dont think that Ive ever taken a role more seriously.
I dont feel that I took any shortcuts as Im prone to do.
I was also interested in how to put character into a role that is a killer doing action sequences.
How do you perform emotionally in those kinds of scenarios?
There were some itches I was looking to scratch.
Is it the most physically demanding role youve had?[Inhales.]
It was actually a cool lesson.
As a nonathletic person, I was kind of a dick the other way.
I didnt give that kind of acting enough credit.
I was a … nerd snob.
For this role, everything came from training; my character decisions came from that.
Training is also a more accurate parallel to how to get a good performance.
Thats something, when I was 19, that I wouldnt have wanted to hear.
There was news that production shut down because of a knee injury.
Oh, shit.It was real wonky.
It was probably a lack of sleep.
Just a little move and [I was down].
So that was a low moment.
Ironically a sobering experience.
Then you have your surgery and you go into rehab.
Im at home doing these knee exercises, and coming off the drugs, I was thinking aboutCowboy Bebop.
Doing those knee exercises, I was like, I gotta put my focus into this.
So I think thats also fueling my fear.
This interview is all about me freaking out.
And I didnt feel that I could come back and half-ass this role.
I had to take it deadly seriously.
Which sounds Boy Scout-ish, but it was the truth.
Maybe it was an apology that took a whole season for me to express.
Because I felt so responsible for that upheaval in a whole crews lives.
I never really did.
Im pretty sure that they had made a decision that this character should be Asian.
Having said that, Im not sure whether the Japanese creators of the show cared.
However, we live on planet Earth and were making a product for people in 2021.
Im not sure if thats fair.
Like, who cares, you know what I mean?
Theres something loose and free about the way anime handles race, that it seems less meaningful.
And I go, maybe this is what we should strive for.
Some fans thought Spike, who is 27 in the anime, should have been played by someone younger.
Were you concerned about that?The biggest fear that I had was I was too old.
I knew people were gonna have issues with my age.
And I had to get over it.
Im not a person who says age is just a number or whatever.
It was gonna be harder physically.
And I was gonna look different than a 25-year-old guy.
At some point, the opportunity is Yes or no do you wanna do it?
And I did wanna do it.
So I wasnt gonna stop myself from doing it.
I dont think I wouldve done justice to the emotional depth we tried to give Spike.
Theres always a trade-off.
What young men are typically best at as actors is rage.
And that mightve been a more pronounced element in the character.
What Im better at, being older, is showing weakness and vulnerability and love.
Those things are more accessible to me.
Personally, Id prefer the version Im able to do now.
Youve had good onscreen chemistry with people like Gabrielle Union inFlashForwardand Karen Gillan inSelfie.
That allows you to have chemistry when the cameras are rolling.
I think thats where the chemistry is.
Are you and Gabrielle going to work together again?Oh yeah, I would.
We came close on one, but theres nothing on the burner at the moment.
Can you talk about the project that almost happened?I wouldnt want to without everyones consent.
Can I just ask if it was a rom-com?[Pause.]
Yeah, it was a rom-com of sorts.
Did you get to meet Yoko Kanno, the composer of the series?I havent.
She was in Japan the whole time.
I made sure that she was locked in before saying yes.
I didnt think the show should go forward without her involvement.
[She is] too integral to the show.
Our iteration minus her would suffer too much.
How could you do it better?
You have to do something a little different.
I guess thats the tightrope youre walking, which thankfully isnt my job.
But it touches on me.
But its your head on the platter, so.It really is.
At least my hair.
My hairs on the platter.
Spike also has very iconically poufy hair.
What were the hair conversations?I dont know if I like the hair.
My hairs such a mess, and its very hard to make it do anything.
And so I had to try and make my hair grow as fast as possible before episode one.
Did you eat a lot of miyeokguk [seaweed soup] or something?[Laughs.]
Thats … almost literally true.
I had a really short haircut, so I was really sweating it.
I was like,I gotta keep growing, I gotta keep growing.
Is your hair naturally wavy?Yes.
You know, I was born with very straight hair.
And I remember in eighth grade, my mom did a home perm.
And I was so upset.
I was like, What is this youve done to my head?
It looked like a LEGO wig or something.
But strangely, as I grew older, it got curlier and curlier.
Did the perm permanently change the trajectory of your hair?Wow.
Thats a good alternate theory: that my mother had the most permanent permanent of all time.
Cowboy Bebopwill premiere on Netflix November 19.
Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism.
