Hiroyuki Sanada can’t stop being awesome

When stuntman Terry Richards died in 2014, his son noted that he had fought Indiana Jones, James Bond, Luke Skywalker, and Rambo over the course of his career. Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada hasn’t faced all of those guys, but since he gained recognition in the West, he’s built an impressive résumé of his own: He’s fought—and been killed by—Wolverine, Sub-Zero, and Hawkeye, and he recently battled alongside John Wick. He even got obliterated by the sun once, an enemy few people have defeated, and by famous videotape ghost Sadako, who even fewer people have defeated.

Sanada is now set to lead the ensemble cast of FX’s new adaptation of Shōgun (out February 27), and while it’s temping to say we’re living through a Hiroyuki Sanadaissance because of high-profile roles like that, we’ve actually been living through one for 20 years. Sanada has built a fantastically cool career for himself lately, and that’s after decades of working in Japan and Hong Kong—where he was iconic action star Sonny Chiba’s protégé for a time. He even earned an honorary MBE from the British government for his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company. How many people killed by Sub-Zero and resurrected with demon powers can say that?

American movie-watchers who were too scared to seek out Ringu after Gore Verbinski’s English remake may have first seen Sanada in The Last Samurai, where he played the guy who teaches Tom Cruise’s character how to use a sword better than the actual Japanese people. That may have gotten him stuck in a type-casting situation, since he played a compelling authority figure with a sword there, and he has portrayed a similar kind of guy many times since then, including in Shögun.

A big chunk of that is definitely the American film industry forcing Japanese actors into a specific kind of box, but he did star in a ton of samurai movies in Japan before finding international success, and he had a recurring role on Sonny Chiba’s Shadow Warriors—the historical drama best known in the West for starring Chiba as legendary ninja Hattori Hanzō, which set up the meta-joke of him playing an even further descendent of the same guy in Kill Bill. Also, Sanada is just really good at playing a guy with a sword, whether it’s in The Wolverine, or 47 Ronin, or Mortal Kombat, or John Wick: Chapter 4.

Westworld, which was often cannier than it ever got credit for, even played on that stereotype by having Sanada play the Sanada-type role when it introduced the aggressively clichéd Shōgunworld—an offshoot theme park of the main Westworld. The show winked at the hackiness of Shōgunworld by having characters point out that it, and everyone in it, was just doing Westworld with a different aesthetic, suggesting that everyone involved knew it was supposed to be kind of dumb and obvious.

But nobody could argue that his roles as a cool sword guy in Mortal Kombat and John Wick: Chapter 4 came from any place other than genuine enthusiasm for being a cool sword guy. Why else would you sign on to the former if not so you could play Scorpion, one of the most iconic video game characters ever, especially in a reboot that re-centered the fire-breathing, skull-faced demon ninja as the good guy? As for John Wick, that series is almost entirely built around giving people who are The Best At What They Do the spotlight they’ve always deserved, and his relatively brief (but impactful) role in Chapter 4 is just as much of a “you should know who this guy is” message to the audience as Scott Adkins’ appearance later in the film.

Sanada was originally cast as the villain in the third John Wick movie, meaning he presumably would’ve played a version of Mark Dacascos’ Zero, and while it would’ve been cool to see Sanada battle the Baba Yaga, making him a ride-or-die ally of Wick’s instead in Chapter 4 is much more appropriate to Sanada’s charm—since that charm very much seems to be coming from the same vaguely inscrutable place as Keanu Reeves’ own. You want to hang out with him, despite the fact (or maybe because of the fact) that he’d clearly rather just be alone.

To go back to The Last Samurai, Sanada just seems like the kind of guy who you wish would take you under his wing and teach you how to do something cool, like use a sword or fire off Scorpion’s spear or repair the damaged solar shield of the Icarus II on its mission to jumpstart the sun with a bomb made by Cillian Murphy (a different bomb made by Cillian Murphy than the famous one). Yes, we’re talking about Danny Boyle’s secret masterpiece Sunshine, which is as much proof as anyone should need for Sanada’s inherent greatness. He doesn’t have to use a sword to be cool, he just has to be a trustworthy space captain who leaves such an impression in the film’s first act that it immediately sells how high the stakes are when he gets roasted.

Finally we have Shōgun, which is so faithfully dedicated to Sanada’s whole thing that FX is almost exclusively advertising the show with imagery of Sanada—sporting his trademark goatee, graying from years of being awesome—in full samurai armor. Sanada and FX and everyone involved with Shōgun know that that is something people want to see. Hell, Sanada’s effortlessly compelling vibe, which people can’t help but be drawn to, is practically a plot point on Shōgun.

And that, no offense to stuntman Terry Richards (who was great!), is a power that Sanada has that Western media will hopefully keep taking advantage of. He doesn’t need to fight Sub-Zero to be cool, he doesn’t need to give his life for John Wick to be cool, and he doesn’t even need to be playing up his samurai movie bonafides to be cool. He just is cool.