Cowboy Bebop: John Cho on fan expectations, genre play and that shirtless scene

Any series that is as anticipated as Netflix’s new genre-smash will be mixed with excitement and apprehension.

3 min read

November 19, 2021 - 4:21PM

In the two decades since Western audiences discovered Cowboy Bebop, it has become a revered institution as the gateway drug for anime.

So, it’s not an exaggeration to say that a live-action remake of the anime has been long-anticipated, especially after previous adaptation attempts were aborted.

Even this production had its share of drama after an on-set injury led to a months-long production break which was then extended by covid shutdowns.

So that anticipation isn’t only excitement, there’s also a decent dose of apprehension too.

American actor John Cho, who plays the lead role of interplanetary bounty hunter Spike Spiegel in the Netflix series, said he was “too ignorant” to feel the pressure of the fandom at first. He had other expectations he wanted to meet.

“The first worry was competency with the martial arts and being believable there,” he told news.com.au. “I got into shape and worked on it, but then it was studying Spike’s physicality.”

Specifically, there is an early scene in the first episode, recreated from the anime, in which Cho as Spike is training with a wooden dummy. His moves are swift and balletic – and he also happens to be shirtless, filmed in soft light with his hair swishing around.

When the image of the 49-year-old Cho with his washboard abs was released in the weeks before the premiere, the Star Trek, Searching and Harold and Kumar actor became the object of a desiring gaze.

The John Cho photo that sent the internet into a frenzy. Picture: Kirsty Griffin/Netflix

“Yeah, men have to worry about looking good in various states of undress too. I don’t particularly enjoy getting undressed in front of the camera, but that’s what it is!

“I was much more concerned with getting the moves right because I couldn’t hide behind a stuntman in that one,” Cho said of the scene. “And that was an extremely technically difficult sequence, and a really difficult skill to learn.

“Moving around is complicated and having that be very early in our shooting schedule was quite a challenge. I’m happy it came off.”

As to the pressure of meeting the expectations of that devoted fandom, Cho eventually did wade into some of the online fan forums.

“A few times – and it’s not particularly healthy. I would just say that it isn’t really anime-specific or entertainment-specific,” he explained. “I don’t know that it’s healthy to enter online forums in general.

“I think it’s much healthier to look people in the eye and collaborate, and those are the conversations I want to have.”

Cho had no prior relationship to the Cowboy Bebop anime before reading the first episode script for the live-action remake.

It was only then that he watched the anime about a team of bounty hunters who planet-hop on their ship, a genre-smash of sci-fi, westerns and film noir.

Cho with co-stars Mustafa Shakir and Daniella Pineda in Cowboy Bebop. Picture: Geoffrey Short/Netflix

“I wasn’t expecting from the description that it was going to be for me. Then I saw it and I was like, ‘This was actually made, especially, for me’. It was just a mix of everything that I like in movies, and the feelings those genres evoke.”

Cho saw Cowboy Bebop’s playfulness with genre as an “interesting exercise”, drawing inspiration from the series’ jazz-infused score in explaining what he considered to be the core of the experience.

“As with jazz, it’s to see how far you can stray from the melody and play around with the melody while keeping that melody going, if that doesn’t sound too BS-y.

“It feels like, story-wise and genre-wise, that’s what we do. We go, ‘well, it’s a western, but how far can you we go from being a western while being a western, and how far can we go from noir while being a noir, how far can we stray from comedy while being a comedy’?