"I Struggled with Defensive Action" – What Did Shuhei Uesugi Focus on in His Role as Hajime Umemiya? Interview for the Film "WIND BREAKER"

——Not attacking but fully receiving is rather unique for fighting scene action, isn't it?

Uesugi: He tells Sakura that "fighting is dialogue," and basically receives. In the sense of also accepting Tomiyama's pain and suffocating feelings, I was experimenting with how to receive in that way.

——I heard that wind machines were used to visualize the wind, especially during action scenes.

Uesugi: We were sending wind the entire time during filming, so we couldn't hear anything. There were many instances where we had to project our voices much more than expected (during action sequences) to make it work, and I really felt the intensity gradually increasing. I think the scene between Umemiya and Tomiyama became many times more intense on set than when we were rehearsing the action.

——After filming the action, you performed ADR to record the audio for those scenes, correct?

Uesugi: All scenes with strong wind were ADR, so the fighting scenes were also ADR. I wanted to recreate the tension from the set, but inevitably there are slight differences, so I had the ADR retaken many times while consulting with the director.

——Recreating the intensity unique to the set seems quite difficult...

Uesugi: It really is. It's different from vocal technique, I'd say. Besides the fighting scenes, scenes like when Tomiyama storms in alone also became ADR, and those scenes were also very difficult.

The atmosphere when performing on set can only be created there, so I worked to layer something different through ADR. ADR took more time than planned.