No. I don't have any scenes with her, but she's great. She's great. We had a really great group of people out there. To be in Japan away from all your loved ones, it was really… we got really lucky. KaDee, and Clea [DuVall], and Bill [Pullman] and everybody just had a grand time when we went out.
The streets in Tokyo don’t really have signs. When you went out, did you go by yourselves or did you have a guide?
The streets have no names. It's not just a song. It's absolutely true. Sarah and I were there first, so we kind of went off exploring together, navigating the subways and such. But then, when you have your days off, I would just get on the train and go. And I think I probably touched every corner of Tokyo. It's a huge city. There are 30 million people in Tokyo.
Did you look at some of the great temples?
I went to Sengakuji, I went to The Imperial Palace, I did get the chance to go to Kyoto and go to Nijojo, which is Ieyasu Tokugawa's old residence in Kyoto and was the capital of Japan. I went everywhere. I watched a samurai sword being made by this guy named Yoshihara Yoshindo who is like the next in line to be the national treasure in sword-making.
”Kill Bill 3”…
Yeah (laughing). I actually looked at a lot of samurai swords in different shops and I asked somebody if they knew Sonny Chiba and I don't think they thought it was funny. So I kept the wisecracks to myself, especially in that environment with all the swords around.
There's a lot of pride in the making of the swords.
There are a lot of things, but that's one of the things that makes Japan so refreshing and endearing is that no matter if you're making a samurai sword or a sandal, they do it to the best of their ability and take great pride in what they do -- but humble. It's a beautiful culture. To be able to experience that for three months is just a dream come true.
Did you buy a sword?
No. But I do plan on going back and doing a little shopping. You've got to pick the right sword. Or it picks you, I guess.
Are you a fan of the Japanese horror films in general?
I liked “Ringu” very much. But “The Grudge” is the best of both worlds I think, because it doesn't lose any of that Japanese sensibility. It definitely has a different flavor in that way that “Ju-On” was very unique. But “The Grudge” is that with American actors in Japan telling that story. It's pretty terrifying.
You know Sarah from an episode you did on “Buffy,” but was there something about her you learned while working with her in Japan that you didn't know before?
I've known her for awhile, but it's interesting how she was on “Buffy” and I was on “Roswell” and to come back and spend three months in the same place. It was great to have a friend to go exploring with and to go do things with. I guess she hasn't changed a whole lot. She's still the same person, pretty much, that I knew way back when. She's a good person. She knows what she wants in life and how to get it. As I worked with her I could see that she's really, really happy and I'm ecstatic for her. Working with her on “Buffy” a long time ago and then coming back to work together again, it was great to have a friend in Japan… to be one of the lone Americans out there and to have, to feel so… There's a definite sense of being lost in translation and there's a sense loneliness if you don't have anybody around, so it was really, really good for both of us, I think.
I think we both pushed each other to go out and explore different things. I mean, we both had our little books of Tokyo and you know, dog-earing pages and saying, "We did this, we did that. Now let's go see this and let's go do that." We both did things on our own as well, but we were there for three weeks before anyone else got there so got a lot of sightseeing in before we started work.
Was there anything you learned about yourself while working in Japan?
I always had sort of a desire to go to Japan and I didn't really know why. I just really liked the culture. I liked a lot of things that were Japanese. I think what I found out about myself is, why. And understanding that love and that culture is just… Japan was just an amazing experience for me personally because everywhere I traveled - be it the giant Sony building in the middle of this bustling city, and around the corner is this 300 year old temple. It was like a meeting of these two different worlds, that I found myself kind of grappling onto both of them. Kind of being nostalgic about things past, and also going forward in the future. It was just a really nice centering.
JASON BEHR - "THE GRUDGE" INTERVIEW: CONTINUED ON PAGE 3
