Posted in: Apple, TV | Tagged: invasion, Shioli Kutsuna

Invasion Star Shioli Kutsuna on Mitsuki Yamato's Alien Mystery & More

Shioli Kutsuna (Deadpool & Wolverine) spoke with us about her cerebral journey as Mitsuki Yamato in the AppleTV+ sci-fi series Invasion.

Shioli Kutsuna is one of the biggest emerging international stars to become a crossover success in the United States, which is more amazing considering she was born in Australia and moved to Japan to pursue an acting career in her youth. Since her debut in the 2008 drama Taiyô to umi no kyôshitsu, she's been a regular in the Japanese film and TV scene until 2018 when she made her American debut in Netflix's The Outsider and 20th Century's Deadpool 2. Her next American project would be one of the most nuanced as JASA engineer Mitsuki Yamato, as one of the leads of the ensemble series Invasion for AppleTV+. Throughout the series, Mitsuki's been trying to unravel the mystery behind an extraterrestrial force, which is responsible for "killing" her love and astronaut Hinata Murai (Rinko Kikuchi, and making sense of their intentions. Kutsuna spoke to Bleeding Cool about her journey as Mitsuki, coming at an impasse with the sci-fi series' third and final season, working with creator Simon Kinberg and its spontaneous nature of production, and co-star Shane Zaza (Nikhil Kapur), and finally working with Shamier Anderson (Trevante Cole).

Invasion Star Shioli Kutsuna on Finally Crossing Paths with Other Main Characters, Working with Simon Kinberg.

You've had this incredible journey as a Mitsuki on Invasion. Since you started on the show, how do you feel your character has progressed in these three seasons?

She's had the craziest journey out of all the characters, but season one was important because it was the one ultimately where she experiences grief and her lover's death. From seasons two and three, it was more like a spiritual journey where she's connecting with these entities and experiencing a higher frequency realm. Season three is like I've known my other co-stars, but we hadn't worked with each other, because our storylines never merged. Finally, we got to meet, and that obviously created something so different than the former season. That's my journey.

How has it been to navigate through that with Simon [Kinberg] and David [Weil] on the show? I mean, it's one of those unique situations where it's an international cast and having the stories go all at once. How was it like for you to finally see that journey come together this season?

Yeah, it's been amazing working with Simon and David. Simon's a busy guy, so he'd only pop in and out maybe like, I don't remember meet him once during a season, but for this final season when he was in Vancouver, I actually got to have dinner with him, just the two of us, and talk about all the things we wanted to catch up from season one and two. He's the one with the vision, and this is his original project, so it was great to hear his thoughts on what he really likes about Invasion. David was a supporting producer.

Did you have any notes as far as any creative input regarding where Mitsuki would go organically, where you felt like this would be better for your character to do this, or did you mainly stick to the script?

After speaking with Simon, he gave me a broad idea of what he was thinking, but it was nothing concrete. We typically find out everything as we go along, and we receive scripts as we're shooting. So, it wasn't like I knew where my character was heading and her arc before entering a new season.

What do you like working with Shamier [Anderson] and Shane [Zaza] in season three, and the chemistry you developed?

I had the most scenes with Shane, and I absolutely love working with him. First, he is the most hilarious, but amazing human being. He's so genuine, and he'd always offer to run lines before entering a scene or even preparing for the next week or so. It's such smooth communication. We've been like great buddies since season two. Shamier, I only finally got to have scenes with him for this final season, and it was like "Finally!" And we were both excited to work with each other. It was great.

New episodes of Invasion, which also stars Golshifteh Farahani, Billy Barratt, Azhy Robertson, Erika Alexander, Tara Moayedi, Cache Vanderpuye, Louis Toghill, Tamara Lawrence, Togo Igawa, and Eric Lange, premiere Fridays on AppleTV+. The final two episodes will stream on October 17th and October 24th.

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