‘The Boy And The Heron’ Producer & Studio Ghibli Co-Founder Toshio Suzuki On Hayao Miyazaki’s Most Personal Work
28.11.2023 - 21:25
/ deadline.com
As the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, Toshio Suzuki has worked with director Hayao Miyazaki on many films. With The Boy and the Heron, he was able to help bring Miyazaki’s semi-autobiographical fantasy story to life.
In his most personal work to date, Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron follows the story of a young boy named Mahito, who has recently lost his mother. Along with a cunning and deceptive gray heron, he journeys to a mysterious world outside of time where the dead and the living coexist. Suzuki says the core of the story had to change when Miyazaki’s mentor and friend, Isao Takahata, passed away. This led to a focus on the strange friendship between Mahito and the heron.
DEADLINE: Where did the story come from?
TOSHIO SUZUKI: [Miyazaki]’s never done a film where he himself is the protagonist, so he felt that he needed to do that while he’s alive. His past works had a female protagonist, but this time he wanted to tell his own story, so the protagonist was going to be a boy. As a producer, I wasn’t sure of that because looking at a lot of, not just animation, but live action films, I thought that female protagonists would draw more audiences. That’s why I wasn’t too sure with the idea of having a boy protagonist, but Miyazaki insisted that this time, because it’s based on his himself, he’s going to tell a story of a real life boy. Not just an ideal character who’s very perfect and positive, he wanted to portray someone that has these very complex feelings inside him, sometimes ill will or malice, and how that boy at a young age would overcome those things.
DEADLINE: Can you talk about the character of the Heron?
SUZUKI: This was by accident. In his home, he has a small garden and every morning he would go out