The first Asian to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, Shōgun star Anna Sawai has firmly established herself as one of the most famous celebrities of 2024.
Not only Sawai, the series, too, made history at the 2024 Emmys with a record haul of 18 awards. But with her win, Sawai has ensured that she will be playing major roles in future projects which could bring more awards and help her build a high net worth.
Sawai, a New Zealand-born Japanese actor, began her career in Japan at the age of 11. She made her big screen debut before she turned 18 with the martial arts film Ninja Assassin (2009). But her true rise to fame happened in the world of music as a member of a J-pop girl group over the next few years.
She returned to acting and, following a series of notable movies and TV shows, which we will explore in this article, she landed the lead role of Lady Mariko in part-English- and part-Japanese-language drama Shōgun. The phenomenal success of the series and her universally acclaimed performance, especially alongside Japanese acting great Hiroyuki Sanada, proved to be her breakthrough as a leading actor.
With a major award in her bag already, Sawai is certainly all set for more laurels with movies and TV shows she will be seen in the future.
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All about Anna Sawai and her net worth
What is Anna Sawai’s net worth?
Anna Sawai has a net worth of USD 4 million, according to celebrity wealth tracker Celebrity Net Worth.
It is obvious that her earnings from movies, TV shows and her musical career are the prime sources of her wealth. Sawai is still relatively new to the industry and only recently got her breakout role with Shōgun, one of the highest-rated TV shows of 2024. As such, she has yet to take on lead roles in big-budget movies or TV shows. Should she gain more roles in major productions, her net worth will increase substantially, especially since she is now a Primetime Emmy winner.
From stage musicals to the Fast & Furious franchise
Anna Sawai began her career in 2004 with the Japanese stage version of the musical Annie. According to a 2022 The New York Times profile, she landed the titular role, beating 9,000 other children who auditioned.
The acclaimed musical, which is based on Harold Gray’s 1924 comic strip Little Orphan Annie and has been adapted numerous times for stage, TV and films around the world, tells the story of a young girl whose life of misery at the cruel Miss Hannigan’s orphanage in New York changes when she is chosen to spend Christmas at the house of a billionaire named Oliver Warbucks during The Great Depression of the 1930s.
It was five years after Annie that a teenage Sawai was cast in Ninja Assassin. Her role as Kiriko was short but noteworthy. K-pop and K-drama superstar Rain played the assassin in the movie, whose cast members include Naomie Harris, Rick Yune, and Sho Kosugi among others.
Co-produced by The Wachowskis, the movie received negative reviews from critics. It earned just over USD 61 million worldwide on a budget of USD 40 million and was therefore not successful at the box office.
A good 12 years after Ninja Assassin, Sawai returned to the big screen with F9 (2021). The ninth main instalment in the Fast & Furious franchise, the film remains her biggest box office success to date with a massive worldwide haul of more than USD 726 million.
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The huge ensemble cast of the film includes Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jordana Brewster, Sung Kang, Michael Rooker, Helen Mirren, Kurt Russell, Charlize Theron and John Cena. Sawai played the pivotal role of Elle, the adoptive daughter of Kang’s character, Han.
A mark as a J-pop idol
Anna Sawai learned to play the piano from her mother at the age of three. Music was a natural career choice for her. Thus, three years after her career debut with Annie, she enrolled in a J-pop boot camp run by Japanese entertainment conglomerate Avex.
She received dance and singing lessons throughout high school. While studying at Tokyo’s Sophia University, she signed with the Avex Trax record label. In 2012, she performed the American national anthem to commence that year’s Major League Baseball season at the Tokyo Dome.
Her first attempt at a music career wasn’t a success as her girl group ARA, an acronym for Avex Rising Angels, disbanded within months of formation. But Avex re-launched her as a founding member of the J-pop all-girl group Faky in 2013. Their first single, “Better Without You,” was released in July of that year.
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Following the release of a few EPs and an album over the next five years, Sawai announced her departure from the group in November 2018 to focus on her acting career.
“After countless discussions, we have agreed to support her decision to pursue her dream as an actress,” the group said in a statement, which was shared by Sawai on Instagram.
Her final performance as a member of Faky was the tour, fo(u)r, on 20 December 2018.
In a conversation with English actor Tom Hiddleston on Variety’s Actors on Actors in June 2024, Sawai revealed why she left the band.
“From 16 I wanted to act, but just because…they [her agency] were focused on singing, I couldn’t get into it as smoothly as I wanted to. So, I had to quit the J-pop group in order to actually start doing this stuff,” she told Hiddleston.
During her stint with Faky, Sawai also appeared as a lead actress in a music video for Elliott Yamin’s song “Katy” in 2015 as a solo project. Apart from the music video, she voiced the character Angélique Noir in the fashion simulation video game Style Savvy: Styling Star (2017).
Television career before Shōgun
Anna Sawai made her TV debut with the Japanese show Ai no uta! (2007), appearing in one episode of the 45-episode drama. Japanese actress Rei Saito, who was also part of the episode, wrote about Sawai in her blog in 2007. Praising Sawai for her “powerful eyes,” Rei wrote that she “got goosebumps acting with her.”
Sawai took a long break from the small screen after Ai no uta! primarily due to her rising career in music, before returning with the Japanese mystery series Colors (2018) for a small role.
She got a major boost to her acting career with the BBC Two British crime drama TV show Giri/Haji (2019). In it, Sawai played the role of Eriko, the daughter of Yakuza boss Fukuhara (played by Masahiro Motoki). The series was noted for its international cast, featuring a diverse mix of Japanese, Scottish, English and American actors such as Takehiro Hira, Kelly Macdonald, Yōsuke Kubozuka, Will Sharpe, Charlie Creed-Miles, and Justin Long among others. Despite its highly positive critical reception, it was cancelled after one season.
Sawai’s next project was Pachinko (2022–), the critically acclaimed Apple TV+ K-drama based on the 2017 novel of the same name by Min Jin Lee. The show starring Kim Min-ha, Lee Min-ho, Jin Ha, Soji Arai, Steve Sang-Hyun Noh and others in lead roles won the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Foreign Language Series in 2023 alongside several other accolades.
“With F9 being so big, I feared audiences might label me as the ‘Asian actress who does action. And so when Pachinko came along, I was so happy that it was something so profound, so dramatic and so absolutely different,” Sawai told The New York Times.
In Pachinko, whose season 2 was released in 2024, Sawai plays Naomi Ichizaki, a main character who is a co-worker of the lead character Solomon Baek (played by Ha).
She appeared in the lead role of Cate Randa in the TV series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (2023–). Since the show is the sixth instalment and second television series in the Monsterverse franchise, it was Sawai’s biggest international small-screen project before Shōgun.
As part of the Monsterverse franchise, the show is directly connected to blockbuster movies Godzilla (2014), Kong: Skull Island (2017) and the other projects of the franchise released to date. Besides Sawai, the Apple TV+ show also stars Kiersey Clemons, Ren Watabe, Mari Yamamoto, Anders Holm, Joe Tippett and Elisa Lasowski, Wyatt Russell and Kurt Russell in lead roles. The second season of the show is expected to release in 2025.
Stardom with Shōgun
Anna Sawai was cast as the female lead in Shōgun in September 2021. The period drama from Walt Disney Co. is the second television adaptation of the 1975 book of the same name by James Clavell, whose primary characters are based on real-life historical figures. The first was the five-episode 1980 miniseries starring Richard Chamberlain, Yoko Shimada and Toshiro Mifune in the roles of John Blackthorne, Lady Mariko and Lord Yoshii Toranaga, respectively.
By the time Sawai was announced in the role of Lady Mariko, both Hiroyuki Sanada and Cosmo Jarvis had been cast in the two male lead roles of Lord Toranaga and Blackthorne, respectively.
In the book and the two shows, Lady Mariko, a Catholic noblewoman in 17th-century Japan, is shown as a devoted ally of Lord Toranaga, who is depicted as a cunning and powerful military commander with his own designs to rule Japan.
At the time of its announcement and sometime before its release, the 2024 adaptation was described as a limited series. However, in May 2024, FX renewed the show for two more seasons. Hiroyuki Sanada, who is also the producer of the show, closed a deal that will see him return as Lord Toranaga in Shōgun season 2. There is no information on Sawai’s return.
Nevertheless, Sawai secured her first Emmy nomination for Shōgun and beat out fellow Primetime Emmy nominees Carrie Coon (for The Gilded Age), Imelda Staunton (for The Crown), Jennifer Aniston (for The Morning Show), Maya Erskine (for Mr. and Mrs. Smith), and Reese Witherspoon (for The Morning Show) to win in the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series category for her first win.
As for Shōgun, the show received a record 25 nominations across all Emmy categories and was the most nominated show of 2024. It was only the second majorly non-English-language show to be nominated in the Outstanding Drama Series category at the Primetime Emmy after the internationally acclaimed thriller K-drama Squid Game (2021).
Even before heading into the main ceremony, it broke the record for most Emmy wins in one season with 14 awards at the Creative Arts Emmys. It extended its record with four more wins for a final tally of 18 awards at the Primetime Emmys. Apart from Sawai’s, its three Primetime Emmy wins include Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for Sanada, Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for Frederick E. O. Toye for the episode Crimson Sky, and Outstanding Drama Series.
Now a celebrated star of world television, Sawai is expected to win more accolades in her career. And there is little doubt given the kind of roles she has picked to date and their reception.
It is interesting that all four of the television shows in which she has played a main character since Giri/Haji have received critical acclaim. While Giri/Haji has a rating of 100 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, Pachinko is rated 98 per cent, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters at 86 per cent and Shōgun sits at 99 per cent. It is a rare feat for any actor so early on in their career.
(Hero and Featured image credit: © 2023, FX. All Rights Reserved. via IMDb)
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
The primary source of Anna Sawai's income is her work as an actor in major TV shows and movies. She has also been a successful J-pop idol before fully devoting herself to acting.
Anna Sawai has played main roles in movies and TV shows such as 'F9,' 'Giri/Haji,' 'Pachinko,' 'Monarch: Legacy of Monsters' and 'Shōgun.'
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Manas Sen Gupta writes at the intersection of tech, entertainment and history. His works have appeared in publications such as The Statesman, Myanmar Matters, Hindustan Times and News18/ETV. In his spare time, Manas loves studying interactive charts and topographic maps. When not doing either, he prefers reading detective fiction. Spring is his favourite season and he can happily eat a bowl of noodles any time of the day.
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