The new stars of morning TV

Whisky and a New Mexican actress share the screen in the popular NHK historical drama series “Massan.”

ASK THE AVERAGE JAPANESE what they know about Scotland and chances are that the replies will revolve around whisky, the Loch Ness monster, golf and men in skirts.

It is therefore fortunate that “Massan,” the 15 minute NHK drama that runs from 8 am every weekday morning, is challenging some of those stereotypes and broadening the public's understanding of the people and habits of the United Kingdom's nether regions.

And it matters not a jot that the star of the show, Charlotte Kate Fox, is actually from New Mexico and had visited neither Scotland nor Japan before being cast as Ellie, the Scottish wife of a Japanese chemistry student who introduces whisky to this country. Indeed, even Scots who attended the press conference at the FCCJ on Nov. 5 with Fox and Ken Sakurai, the senior producer behind the program, congratulated her on her mastery of a Scottish brogue.

“Speaking Japanese with a Scottish accent proved just impossible.”

“In graduate school, we did a lot of voice and dialect work, so I did Irish, Scottish and French accents by locating certain phonetic sounds and then replacing them with whatever accent I was using,” Fox said. “Although speaking Japanese with a Scottish accent proved just impossible,” she admitted. Fox fought off competition from 521 other actresses who wanted to play the part of Ellie in a story based loosely on that of Rita Cowan and Masataka Taketsuru, who arrived in Japan from Scotland almost one century ago and are credited with starting Japan's award winning whisky industry. (The success of the drama also coincides with Japan getting one over on the home of the amber dram, with the Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask 2013 crowned the best in the world by Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible last month.)

“Massan” which is taken from Ellie's nickname for her husband was first screened in late September; it is due to run for 150 episodes until late March of next year. For cast and crew, the latest incarnation of a Japanese TV institution that dates back to 1961 though the first starring a non Japanese actor has been a testing experience.

“This whole process has continuously been the hardest thing I have ever done in my life,” said Fox. “Every day, especially at the beginning, was the hardest day of my life. Imagine that you have to get up and do a speech and you wake up in the morning and find that you have forgotten how to speak your language. Though now I have a better understanding of the language and I hope one day to be fluent.”

Sakurai heaped praise on his star and her dedication to her craft. “This is a tremendous project, although it has been full of challenges,” he said. “The one person who I think has suffered the most and made the greatest effort has been Charlotte.

“Not only has she had to master the language, but she has to master the performance as well and bring it alive,” he said. “The Ellie that she has produced is absolutely breathtaking and has been full of surprises, even to us, the staff. The viewers' response to Charlotte has been overwhelming, week after week.”

Sakurai was coy when asked about the budget for what is undoubtedly a major television undertaking, but admitted that the program “is costing a great deal more than previous series.” And he agreed that if NHK had been a private broadcaster that could take advantage of sponsorship of its programs, then it might have been able to offset much of those costs by marrying the series to one of Japan's whisky makers.

But while the story has whisky as its backdrop, Sakurai insisted, it is more a tale of the development of Japan's manufacturing sector and the relationship between a foreign woman and a Japanese man. “The story is bigger than just whisky,” he said. “It is the story of manufacturing in Japan. We had wanted to focus on Japan’s history of 80 or 90 years ago, when manufacturing here was truly taking off, and we decided to take one particular theme that happened to be whisky.

“But, of course,” he said, “if through our efforts Japanese whisky becomes more popular and sales increase around the world, then that will be an added bonus.”

Fox added that she hoped Ellie and her Japanese husband might serve as role models for modern day couples. “She is probably the most patient person on Earth,” she said. “And this show brings out not only for wives, but for married couples the simple sense that they should never give up.” She added, “I think that mentality has been lost today and divorce is so easy. The second there is a misunderstanding or a difference in values or morals, everybody just signs the papers and walks away.

“For Ellie, that is simply not an option,” she said. “If people watch the show and take one thing away, I hope it is that they should not give up, that they should not walk away, that they have to be patient and continue loving each other.”

Julian Ryall is the Japan correspondent for the Daily Telegraph.