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- Actor
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Hiroyuki Sanada was born on October 12, 1960 in Tokyo. He made his film debut when he was 5 in Rokyoku komori-uta (1965) (Shin'ichi Chiba played the lead role.) His father died when he was 11. He joined Japan Action Club, organized & run by Sonny Chiba, when he was 12. He 1st became famous as an action star for his role in Yagyu Clan Conspiracy (1978) but is now known as one of the most talented actors in Japan. From 1999-2000, he played the fool in an English-language production of "King Lear" w/ members of the Royal Shakespeare Co as the 1st Japanese actor to act w/ the RSC. He received an honorary MBE (Member of the British Empire) for this work. He & Satomi Tezuka split after 7 years in 1997.- Minami Hamabe was born on 29 August 2000 in Ishikawa, Japan. She is an actress, known for Godzilla Minus One (2023), Shin Kamen Rider (2023) and Let Me Eat Your Pancreas (2017).
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Sonoya Mizuno's a Japanese-born English actress, model & ballet dancer. She was born on July 1, 1986 in Tokyo, Japan. She graduated from the Royal Ballet School.
She has starred in Ex Machina (2014), Annihilation (2018) & Devs (2020). She had minor roles in La La Land (2016), Beauty and the Beast (2017) & Crazy Rich Asians (2018). She also starred in Maniac (2018) & is set to appear in House of the Dragon (2022).- Erich Anderson was born on 24 October 1956 in Sagamihara, Japan. He was an actor and writer, known for Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984), Unfaithful (2002) and NCIS (2003). He was married to Saxon Trainor. He died on 31 May 2024 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Ryunosuke Kamiki was born in Fujimi. He was diagnosed with a rare disease soon after he was born and was lucky enough to become one of the 1% who survived the disease. To celebrate this miracle, his mother decided to register him as a child actor in an agency to record his growth. He acted in his first TV ad when he was 2 & quickly became one of the best child actors of his generation. He debuted in TV drama when he was 6, playing the stepson of the main character Takeshi Kurosawa (played by Japanese idol Masahiro Nakai) in the 1999's TV drama Good News. He also appeared briefly as a supporting actor in the 1998's drama Happy Mania and as since acted in numerous TV dramas, including Quiz (2000), Namida o fuite (2000), Mukodono! (2001), Wedding Planner(2001), Tantei Kazoku(2002). As he got older, he also started to act in big screen productions such as Insutoru (2004), Otosan no backdrop (2004), Ren'ai-shousetsu (2004) & Survive Style 5+ (2005).
2005 was an important year in his career. He became the sole leading actor of a movie for the first time in Takashi Miike's Yokai daisenso (The Great Yokai War). The film was shown in Venice Film Festival that year, but he missed the red carpet because of jet lag and tiredness from the flight to Venice. His performance is widely praised both in Japan and internationally, winning him the Newcomer of the Year of 29th Japan Academy Prize. He also starred in the TV drama Aikurushii that year & became friends with his co-star Kanata Hongo, a fellow child actor.
In 2007, he got his first sole leading role in a TV drama in detective drama Tantei Gakuen Q, playing alongside with many of his future high school classmates and friends including Mirai Shida & Hey! Say! JUMP's Ryosuke Yamada. He starred in an NHK Asadora (Dondo Hare (2007) for the first time, playing the brother of the leading female character. Other works that year also include Little DJ: Chiisana koi no monogatari, Toku no sora ni kieta and he is the leading stars in all of these film.
Kamiki spent most of the year 2008 shooting the TV drama Kaze no gaaden in Hokkaido. The drama was written by famous Japanese screenwriter So Kuramoto, and Kamiki played the mentally-disabled son of the main character, Sadami Shiratori, who is starred by Kamiki's favourite actor Kiichi Nakai. Kamiki developed a father-and-son kind of friendship with Kiichi Nakai during filming.
In 2010, he played one of his most famous characters in the TV series Keizoku 2: SPEC: Juichi Ninomae. His character was so widely loved that the producer of the series tried everything he could to get him to appear in the follow-up movie series of the show. In 2012, he played the famous Japanese tragic hero Minamoto no Yoshitsune in the NHK Taiga drama Taira no Kiyomori. As he also played young Minamoto no Yoshitsune in NHK 2005's Taiga drama Yoshitsune, he literately portrayed the life of Minamoto no Yoshitsune on small screens.
Another important work by Kamiki's the Japanese Academy-Award winning film Kirishima, bukatsu yamerutteyo (The Kirishima Thing) in 2012. While almost the entire young Japanese acting generation shined in the film, he still managed to give an impressive performance as the leading star. He also influenced other young actors, many acting for the first time, to give their best performance as a senior actor.
2013 was another productive year as the first year after he graduated from high school & became a full-time actor. Apart from continuing to act in the SPEC series film & acting in the TV mini-series Kogure shashinkan, he acted alongside Sho Sakurai in the TV drama Kazoku geemu. His performance was so great that he won best supporting actor at the 77th Drama Academy Awards while the highly-praised drama swept the awards. In 2015, he co-starred with Takeru Satoh in the well-received comic-based movie Bakuman as Akito Takagi. While the movie's about 2 high school students working hard as professional Japanese manga artists for Jump Magazine, he has said that Akito Takagi's 1 of the roles that's most like himself, as he has been a long-time manga lover.
He's widely loved & appreciated by many famous Japanese actors as well as screenwriters. He worked with well-acclaimed Japanese screenwriter & director, Kankuro Kudo for the 1st time in 2011, playing the main character in the TV drama 11 nin mo iru!. They worked together again in the 2016 film Too Young to Die & for the 2019 NHK Taiga drama Idaten: Tokyo Olympics Banashi.
He has also worked w/ director Keishi Ohtomo several times, who's famous for making good comics-adapted movies. He played Sojiro Seta in the 2011 film Ruroni Kenshin: Kyoto taika-hen (Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno) & Ruroni Kenshin: Densetsu no saigo-hen (Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends). As a fan of the original manga series Ruroni Kenshin & Sojiro Seta, he practiced for the role even before he was officially cast for it. He was the 1st choice for Rei Kiriyama, the main character of 3-gatsu no raion zenpen (March Comes in Like a Lion) (2017), even getting a rank for amateur shogi players during his preparation for the role as Rei Kiriyama.
Apart from his acting career, Kamiki has a stunning career as a voice actor. He became 1 of the favorite voice actors of Hayao Miyazaki when he was young, voicing Bo in his Oscar-winning animation movies Spirited Away in 2001. His performance was so good that Miyazaki invited him to work in another well-acclaimed animated movie of Studio Ghibli, Howl's Moving Castle, in 2004. He also played the major character in Ghibli Museum exclusive short film, The Day I Harvested a Planet.
He stated working with animation director Hiromasa Yonebayashi while the latter was still working at Studio Ghibli. In 2010, Yonebayashi based the main character Sho, from his directorial debut The Secret World of Arrietty, on Ryunosuke, inviting him to become the voice of the character. After Yonebayashi started his own animation studio, Studio Ponoc, he invited Ryunosuke, to dub for the main male character, Peter, in the studio's first feature-length animation, Mary and the Witch's Flower in 2017.
Other famous animation directors he has worked with include Mamoru Hosoda & Masayuki Kojima. He voiced the main character of Masayuki Kojima's Piano no mori (Piano Forest) in 2007, playing Mamoru Hosoda as well as the enjoyable & well-received film Sama uozu (Summer Wars) in 2009. He also worked as a voice actor in a Doraemon movie (Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur 2006) and the 2011 animated movie The Princess and the Pilot.
His highlight in his career as a voice actor came in 2016 when he voiced the main character in Makoto Shinkai's widely renowned animated romantic fantasy drama film, Your Name. As his character Taki Tachibana switches bodies with the major female character Mitsuha, he gave a critically acclaimed voice acting performance for both Taki and Mitsuha in Taki's body, winning Best Actor at the 11th Seiyu Awards. The film was a worldwide success at the box office. It garnered widespread acclaim from critics and the general public. It also became one of the best-selling films worldwide and the second highest grossed domestic films in Japanese film history, making him the only actor who starred in all 3 top-grossing Japanese domestic films (The other two are Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle).
He enjoys photographing and has even won an award for his photographs. He's also a big fan of railway & an enthusiastic manga lover. - Actor
- Director
- Composer
Tadanobu Asano's a Japanese film actor. His father suggested he take on what became his first role in the TV show Kimpachi Sensei at 16. His film debut was Swimming Upstream (1990) though his first major critical success was in Shunji Iwai's Fried Dragon Fish (1993). His first critical success in the West was in Kore-eda Hirokazu's Maborosi (1995), in which he played a man who inexplicably throws himself in front of a train, widowing his wife & orphaning his infant son. His best known works internationally are the samurai films Taboo (1999) & The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (2003). It was on the set of Iwai's Picnic (1996) that he met & fell in love with J-Pop idol Chara. They married soon after learning she was pregnant with their first child, Sumire. While best known for characters who are psychologically offbeat, if not downright psychotic (e.g. Kakihara in Ichi the Killer (2001)), he has been described by those who know him as a down-to-earth family man. He has directed commercial TV spots for Chara. Hesistant to identify himself as an actor, he most readily describes himself as a vocalist, referring to Mach 1.67, the band he has w/ director Gakuryû Ishii. He's also an artist & sometimes works as a model, most notably for the Japanese designers Takeo Kikuchi & Jun Takahashi.- Producer
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Takashi Yamazaki was born on 12 June 1964 in Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan. He is a producer and director, known for Godzilla Minus One (2023), The Fighter Pilot (2013) and Always: Sunset on Third Street (2005). He has been married to Shimako Sato since April 2012.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Samaire Rhys Armstrong is an American actress and fashion designer. She is known for her roles in Stay Alive, The O.C., It's a Boy Girl Thing, and as Juliet Darling in the ABC television series, Dirty Sexy Money. She has appeared on television as Elaine Richards in the ABC fantasy-drama Resurrection. She has also appeared in music videos for "Penny & Me" by Hanson and "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter.- Director
- Actor
- Producer
Takashi Miike was born in the small town of Yao on the outskirts of Osaka, Japan. His main interest growing up was motorbikes, and for a while he harbored ambitions to race professionally. At the age of 18 he went to study at the film school in Yokohama founded by renowned director Shôhei Imamura, primarily because there were no entrance exams. By his own account Miike was an undisciplined student and attended few classes, but when a local TV company came scouting for unpaid production assistants, the school nominated the one pupil who never showed up: Miike. He spent almost a decade working in television, in many different roles, before becoming an assistant director in film to, amongst others, his old mentor Imamura. The "V-Cinema" (Direct to Video) boom of the early 1990s was to be Miike's break into directing his own films, as newly formed companies hired eager young filmmakers willing to work cheap and crank out low-budget action movies. Miike's first theatrically distributed film was Shinjuku Triad Society (1995) (Shinjuku Triad Society), and from then on he alternated V-Cinema films with higher-budgeted pictures. His international breakthrough came with Audition (1999) (Audition), and since then he has an ever expanding cult following in the west. A prolific director, Miike has directed (at the time of this writing) 60+ films in his 13 years as director, his films being known for their explicit and taboo representations of violence and sex, as seen in such works as Bijitâ Q (2001) (Visitor Q), Ichi the Killer (2001) (Ichi The Killer) and the Dead or Alive Trilogy: Dead or Alive (1999), Dead or Alive 2: Birds (2000) and Dead or Alive: Final (2002).- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Tamlyn Tomita was born on 27 January 1966 in Okinawa, Japan. She is an actress and writer, known for The Day After Tomorrow (2004), The Karate Kid Part II (1986) and The Eye (2008). She is married to Daniel Blinkoff.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Glenn Franklin Howerton is an American actor and filmmaker. He is best known for his roles as Dennis Reynolds in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, for which he is also a writer and executive producer, and Jack Griffin in A.P. Bio, as well as the lead role in the short-lived sitcom That '80s Show.- Animation Department
- Writer
- Art Department
Hayao Miyazaki is one of Japan's greatest animation directors. The entertaining plots, compelling characters, and breathtaking visuals in his films have earned him international renown from critics as well as public recognition within Japan.
Miyazaki started his career in 1963 as an animator at the studio Toei Douga studio, and was subsequently involved in many early classics of Japanese animation. From the beginning, he commanded attention with his incredible drawing ability and the seemingly endless stream of movie ideas he proposed.
In 1971, he moved to the A Pro studio with Isao Takahata. In 1973, he moved to Nippon Animation, where he was heavily involved in the World Masterpiece Theater TV animation series for the next 5 years. In 1978, he directed his first TV series, Future Boy Conan (1978). Then, he moved to Tokyo Movie Shinsha in 1979 to direct his first movie, the classic Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979). In 1984, he released Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), which was based on the manga of the same title he had started 2 years before. The success of the film led to the establishment of a new animation studio, Studio Ghibli. Since then, he has since directed, written, and produced many other films with Takahata. More recently, he has produced with Toshio Suzuki. All enjoyed critical and box office success, in particular Princess Mononoke (1997). It received the Japanese equivalent of the Academy Award for Best Film and was the highest-grossing (about USD $150 million) domestic film in Japan's history at the time of its release.
In addition to animation, he also draws manga. His major work was Nausicaä, an epic tale he worked on intermittently from 1982 to 1984 while he was busy making animated films. Another manga Hikotei Jidai, later evolved into Porco Rosso (1992).- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Ken Watanabe was born on October 21, 1959 in Uonuma, Japan. Both of his parents were teachers: his mother taught general education and his dad taught calligraphy. He became interested in acting at the age of 24, when a director of England's National Theater Company, where he was studying, told him that acting was his special gift. In 1978, he moved to Tokyo to pursue acting. He drew the attention of the critics when Yukio Ninagawa, a famous Japanese director, chose him for the lead role in one of his plays, even though Ken was still an acting student. He made his first TV appearance in 1982. His big career breakthrough came when he was chosen to play the lead in the Japanese national TV drama series called "Dokugan ryu Masamune". He played a samurai leader hero, making him a household name in Japan. In 1989, he collapsed while filming a movie in Canada due to leukemia. He made a miraculous comeback & co-starred with Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai (2003), which pushed him to the center stage of Hollywood.
Ken has a daughter, model, actress, & singer Anne Watanabe, & a son. He's an avid fan of Hanshin Tigers (Japanese professional baseball team) & Kobe Steel rugby team. He loves noodles.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Munetaka Aoki was born on 14 March 1980 in Yao, Osaka, Japan. He is an actor, known for The Roundup: No Way Out (2023), Godzilla Minus One (2023) and Rurouni Kenshin: Final Chapter Part I - The Final (2021). He has been married to Yûka since 27 June 2016.- Writer
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
After training as a painter (he storyboards his films as full-scale paintings), Kurosawa entered the film industry in 1936 as an assistant director, eventually making his directorial debut with Sanshiro Sugata (1943). Within a few years, Kurosawa had achieved sufficient stature to allow him greater creative freedom. Drunken Angel (1948) was the first film he made without extensive studio interference, and marked his first collaboration with Toshirô Mifune. In the coming decades, the two would make 16 movies together, and Mifune became as closely associated with Kurosawa's films as was John Wayne with the films of Kurosawa's idol, John Ford. After working in a wide range of genres, Kurosawa made his international breakthrough film Rashomon (1950) in 1950. It won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, and first revealed the richness of Japanese cinema to the West. The next few years saw the low-key, touching Ikiru (1952) (Living), the epic Seven Samurai (1954), the barbaric, riveting Shakespeare adaptation Throne of Blood (1957), and a fun pair of samurai comedies Yojimbo (1961) and Sanjuro (1962). After a lean period in the late 1960s and early 1970s, though, Kurosawa attempted suicide. He survived, and made a small, personal, low-budget picture with Dodes'ka-den (1970), a larger-scale Russian co-production Dersu Uzala (1975) and, with the help of admirers Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, the samurai tale Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior (1980), which Kurosawa described as a dry run for Ran (1985), an epic adaptation of Shakespeare's "King Lear." He continued to work into his eighties with the more personal Dreams (1990), Rhapsody in August (1991) and Madadayo (1993). Kurosawa's films have always been more popular in the West than in his native Japan, where critics have viewed his adaptations of Western genres and authors (William Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Maxim Gorky and Evan Hunter) with suspicion - but he's revered by American and European film-makers, who remade Rashomon (1950) as The Outrage (1964), Seven Samurai (1954), as The Magnificent Seven (1960), Yojimbo (1961), as A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and The Hidden Fortress (1958), as Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977).- With parents in the show business perhaps it is not surprising that Ando Sakura would become an actress and, moreover, also end up marrying an actor. She was born to actor/director Okuda Eiji and celebrity Kazu Ando on 18.02.1986. Her great grandfather was prime minister Tsuyoshi. Her older sister is director Ando Momoko. She saw her father on stage at age five and decided to become an actress while in second grade. She was often ill as a child. Her disease made her dizzy, lose her balance and more throughout her childhood. Her brain would shut down. She would opt for her mother's maiden surname for her professional career. Sono Sion picked her for his film Love Exposure and gave her a major start on the big screen. She won an award as the Best Supporting Actress for her work in it at the 31st Yokohama Film Festival. Earlier her father cast her in his film Kaze No Sotogawa ('Outside The Wind') alongside her mother and sister. She has since appeared in multiple movies and serials and won several more awards. She married actor Emoto Tasuku in 2012. She had met him on a train in 2008 and had obtained her father's permission to date and marry. She was a boxer in 100 Yen Love, which was fortunate since she had practiced boxing when she was fourteen-years-old. She gave birth to her first child, a girl, in 2017. She won the award for Best Actress at the 42nd Japan Academy Prize for her work on 2018's Shoplifters. By then she was considered one of several top young actresses in Japan next to Yu Aoi, Miyazaki Aoi and perhaps Aso Kumiko. Interestingly, she had earlier decided to retire and focus on raising her child. She is a graduate of Gakushuin Women's College.
- Moeka Hoshi was born on 23 August 1995 in Chiba, Japan. She is an actress, known for Shōgun (2024), The 12 Day Tale of the Monster That Died in 8 (2020) and On the Street (2019).
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Nikaido Fumi has been active in the movie industry a dozen years and already has as many nominations and wins to her name. She was born in American outpost Okinawa in 1994 and first appeared on screen in 2009. She had won an award celebrating young actresses for the film Himizu at the Venice Film Festival by 2011. She was also newcomer of the year at the 36th Japan Academy in the same year. Nikaido was scouted by Sony Music Artists at age twelve after her photograph appeared in the Okinawan edition of Picture Book Of Beautiful Girls, which is a free publication that features local amateurs as models. Coincidentally, she had dreamt of being an actress. This afforded her the opportunity to pitch products in advertisements as early as 2007. She also took advantage of her physique to do modelling for Nicola magazine. She commuted between Okinawa and Tokyo for work until moving to Tokyo for high school. More recently she has expressed a dislike for acting in serials and stated that she wants to act in movies only. Nikaido enrolled in Keio university of Tokyo, where she resides, and studied management and English. Her father is a Tokyo native cook and her mother is an Okinawan who took her to the cinema often. Her favourite foods are turnip and steak. No word on whether she likes them together or if she prefers to consume these separately.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Rinko was born Kikuchi Yuriko in Hadano just south of Tokyo. The town is known mainly for its green tea and public baths. She is the youngest of three siblings. After being scouted on the street, she began modeling in her hometown and subsequently began acting under her birth name before switching to Rinko. She appeared in the cult film The Taste Of Tea, but came to mainstream audiences' attention for her role in Babel, for which she had learned sign language. She played a deaf-mute. She was the first Japanese actress to be nominated for the Oscars in 50 years, since Miyoshi Umeki. Other than that she had appeared in commercials, including ads for Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent, as well as Japanese soap operas. As a result, her popularity rose outside her native country. She moved to New York City and lived for a time with director Spike Jonze, whom she had met in Tokyo at a film festival in 2009. That's when she began taking English lessons. While she had appeared in the acclaimed film version of Norwegian Wood, her later American were mostly popcorn flicks like 47 Ronin and Pacific Rim. Her success and foray into American entertainment continued with her castings in Kumiko, and Westworld. Rinko married Japanese actor Sometani Shota in 2014 and gave birth to a son in October 2016. She is a capable rider of horses and motorcycles and grew up watching samurai films.- Takehiro Hira is an internationally-renowned actor that passionately embodies all roles encompassing a wide scope of genres.
Takehiro will next be seen in Robert Schwentke's Snake Eyes, alongside Henry Golding, Andrew Koji and Úrusla Corberó. Takehiro will be seen as one of the villains in this G.I. Joe spin off. Paramount is slated to release the film on October 23, 2020.
Last year, Takehiro was seen starring in the Netflix/BBC series Giri/Haji, opposite Kelly Macdonald. The series follows Kenzo Mori (Hira), a detective from Tokyo who scours London for his missing brother, who's been involved with the Yakuza and accused of murder. The Guardian hailed Takehiro's performance as "bone deep" and NPR Fresh Air's John Powers acclaimed the series as "unlike anything else on TV."
Most notably, Takehiro was seen as the role of 'Kazu' in William Olsson drama thriller, Lost Girls and Love Hotels opposite Alexandria Daddario. The film followed Margaret (Daddario), a young Western woman in the midst of losing herself in the bacchanal of nighttime Tokyo. Haunted by memories of her twin brother's descent into madness, Margaret courts danger with her fellow ex-pat misfits in dive bars and love hotels. When she falls for Kazu (Hira), a handsome Japanese gangster, she has a chance at redemption.
Other film credits include Yûichi Hibi's Erica 38; Masato Harada's Criminal on the Prosecutor's Side and Sekigahara; Takashi Yamazaki's The Fighter Pilot; Yasuo Mikami's Bushido; Shinji Higuchi and Isshin Inudô's The Floating Castle; Takashi Miike's Lesson of Evil, Ace Attorney and Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai; as well as Hajime Hashimoto's Chacha.
Takehiro began his career in theater where he was discovered in Yukio Ninagawa's production of Hamlet at the Barbican in London. Other theatrical credits include on-stage work in Tokyo in the productions of Tamiya Kuriyama's Phaedra; Keiko Miyata's Pygmalion; Shintaro Mori's Harvest; and Mikijiro Hira's Othello. - Actor
- Soundtrack
Mackenyu was born in Los Angeles, November 16, 1996, and is the son of actor, producer, director, and martial artist Shin'ichi Chiba. Growing up in Los Angeles, he appeared in a few films and TV shows while he was in school and had many interests that included learning to ride horseback, Kyokushin Karate, gymnastics, water polo, and wrestling as well as interest in music that led him to learn piano at age ten and later learning to play saxophone and flute.
Mackenyu rose to fame as an actor after landing the role of Wataya Arata in the Chihayafuru trilogy (2016) that earned him the 40th Annual Japan Academy Newcomer of the Year Award in 2017. His fame grew dramatically after his supporting role as Cadet Ryoichi in the feature Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) and his lead role in the racing action movie Over Drive (2018). Mackenyu was cast as the villain, Enishi Yukishiro, in the blockbuster Rurouni Kenshin: Final Chapter (2021) and then as Scar in Fullmetal Alchemist: The Revenge Of Scar and Fullmetal Alchemist: Final Transmutation (2022).
In 2021, Mackenyu was cast as Roronoa Zoro in the Netflix live action series adaptation of One Piece (2023), and as the lead, Seiya, in the feature Knights of the Zodiac (2023). Mackenyu also stars in two Disney+ projects in 2023, the original live action/ anime mixed feature, Dragons of Wonderhatch and the drama series, House Of The Owl.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Richard Timothy Jones is a American actor. He has worked extensively in both film and television productions since the early 1990s. His television roles include Ally McBeal (1997), Judging Amy (1998-2005), CSI: Miami (2006), Girlfriends (2007), Grey's Anatomy (2010), Hawaii Five-0 (2011-2014), Narcos (2015), and Criminal Minds (2017). Since 2018, he has played Sergeant Wade Grey on the ABC police drama The Rookie. His film roles include portrayals of Lamont Carr in Disney's Full Court Miracle (2003), Laveinio "Slim" Hightower in Rick Famuyiwa's coming-of-age film The Wood (1999), Mike in Tyler Perry's dramatic films Why Did I Get Married? (2007) and Why Did I Get Married Too? (2010), and Captain Russell Hampton in the Hollywood blockbuster Godzilla (2014).- She was born in Iwata, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan on June 3, 1987. Her father Nagasawa Kazuaki was a professional football player and on Japan's national team who later became a coach for Jubilo Iwata. She won the Toho Cinderella contest in 1999 and joined the entertainment business in 2000 with the film Crossfire. At twelve she was the youngest winner of the contest ever. She attended the celebrity mill Horikoshi High School of Tokyo. As with most Japanese celebrities the shorthaired Nagasawa has acted in a mixture of feature-length films and television serial, done adult gravure modelling and released the obligatory single, in this case Sailor Suit And Machine Gun in which she also acted in 2006. She had also immediately jumped into the product promotion game and promoted hot sauce among other products. She won the Best Supporting Actress Prize (again the youngest ever) at the 28th Japanese Academy Awards for Crying Out Love, In the Centre Of The World in 2005. Her role in the 2011 film Moteki heralded her arrival as an adult. She was connected to Arashi's Ninomiya Kazunari for several years. She was next romantically linked with Iseya Yusuke. They had met on the set of Onna Nobunaga in 2012. She went through an inexplicable slump around 2013, but made a comeback as a voice actress in the role of the sexy Miki in the pan-Asian hit Kimi No Na Wa. She became a spokeswoman for Taiwan Tourism in Japan for 2017 and 2018. Masami collects stickers.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on July 1, 1916 in Tokyo, Japan to British parents, Lilian Augusta (Ruse), a former actress, and Walter Augustus de Havilland, an English professor and patent attorney. Her sister Joan, later to become famous as Joan Fontaine, was born the following year. Her surname comes from her paternal grandfather, whose family was from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Her parents divorced when Olivia was just three years old, and she moved with her mother and sister to Saratoga, California.
After graduating from high school, where she fell prey to the acting bug, Olivia enrolled in Mills College in Oakland, where she participated in the school play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and was spotted by Max Reinhardt. She so impressed Reinhardt that he picked her up for both his stage version and, later, the Warner Bros. film version in 1935. She again was so impressive that Warner executives signed her to a seven-year contract. No sooner had the ink dried on the contract than Olivia appeared in three more films: The Irish in Us (1935), Alibi Ike (1935), and Captain Blood (1935), this last with the man with whom her career would be most closely identified: heartthrob Errol Flynn. He and Olivia starred together in eight films during their careers. In 1939 Warner Bros. loaned her to David O. Selznick for the classic Gone with the Wind (1939). Playing sweet Melanie Hamilton, Olivia received her first nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, only to lose out to one of her co-stars in the film, Hattie McDaniel.
After GWTW, Olivia returned to Warner Bros. and continued to churn out films. In 1941 she played Emmy Brown in Hold Back the Dawn (1941), which resulted in her second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actress. Again she lost, this time to her sister Joan for her role in Suspicion (1941). After that strong showing, Olivia now demanded better, more substantial roles than the "sweet young thing" slot into which Warners had been fitting her. The studio responded by placing her on a six-month suspension, all of the studios at the time operating under the policy that players were nothing more than property to do with as they saw fit. As if that weren't bad enough, when her contract with Warners was up, she was told that she needed to make up the time lost because of the suspension. Irate, she sued the studio, and for the length of the court battle she didn't appear in a single film. The result, however, was worth it. In a landmark decision, the court said that not only would Olivia not need to make up the time, but also that all performers would be limited to a seven-year contract that would include any suspensions handed down. This became known as the "de Havilland decision": no longer could studios treat their performers as chattel. Olivia returned to the screen in 1946 and made up for lost time by appearing in four films, one of which finally won her the Oscar that had so long eluded her: To Each His Own (1946), in which she played Josephine Norris to the delight of critics and audiences alike. Olivia was the strongest performer in Hollywood for the balance of the 1940s.
In 1948 she turned in another strong showing in The Snake Pit (1948) as Virginia Cunningham, a woman suffering a mental breakdown. The end result was another Oscar nomination for Best Actress, but she lost to Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda (1948). As in the two previous years, she made only one film in 1949, but she again won a nomination and the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Heiress (1949). After a three-year hiatus, Olivia returned to star in My Cousin Rachel (1952). From that point on, she made few appearances on the screen but was seen on Broadway and in some television shows. Her last screen appearance was in The Fifth Musketeer (1979), and her last career appearance was in the TV movie The Woman He Loved (1988).
Her turbulent relationship with her only sibling, Joan Fontaine, was press fodder for many decades; the two were reported as having been permanently estranged since their mother's death in 1975, when Joan claimed that she had not been invited to the memorial service, which she only managed to hold off until she could arrive by threatening to go public. Joan also wrote in her memoir that her elder sister had been physically, psychologically, and emotionally abusive when they were young. And the iconic photo of Joan with her hand outstretched to congratulate Olivia backstage after the latter's first Oscar win and Olivia ignoring it because she was peeved by a comment Joan had made about Olivia's new husband, Marcus Goodrich, remained part of Hollywood lore for many years.
Nonetheless, late in life, Fontaine gave an interview in which she serenely denied any and all claims of an estrangement from her sister. When a reporter asked Joan if she and Olivia were friends, she replied, "Of course!" The reporter responded that rumors to the contrary must have been sensationalism and she replied, "Oh, right--they have to. Two nice girls liking each other isn't copy." Asked if she and Olivia were in communication and spoke to each other, Joan replied "Absolutely." When asked if there ever had been a time when the two did not get along to the point where they wouldn't speak with one another, Joan replied, again, "Never. Never. There is not a word of truth about that." When asked why people believe it, she replied "Oh, I have no idea. It's just something to say ... Oh, it's terrible." When asked if she had seen Olivia over the years, she replied, "I've seen her in Paris. And she came to my apartment in New York often." The reporter stated that all this was a nice thing to hear. Joan then stated, "Let me just say, Olivia and I have never had a quarrel. We have never had any dissatisfaction. We have never had hard words. And all this is press." Joan died in 2013.
During the hoopla surrounding the 50th anniversary of GWTW in 1989, Olivia graciously declined requests for all interviews as the last of the four main stars. She enjoyed a quiet retirement in Paris, France, where she resided for many decades, and where she died on 26 July, 2020, at the age of 104.
As well as being the last surviving major cast member of some of cinema's most beloved pre-war and wartime film classics (including The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Gone with the Wind (1939)), and one of the longest-lived major stars in film history, Olivia de Havilland was unquestionably the last surviving iconic figure from the peak of Hollywood's golden era during the late 1930s, and her passing truly marked the end of an era.- Actress
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Principal is the elder daughter of Ree (née Veal) and Victor Rocco Principal. Her paternal grandparents were Italian, while her mother's family was from Gordon, Georgia, and South Carolina. Her father, a United States Air Force sergeant, was often transferred to different duty stations, so the family constantly moved, and Victoria grew up in London, Florida, Puerto Rico, Massachusetts, and Georgia, among other places. She and her sister attended 17 different schools. Victoria's acting career began when she made a commercial at age five, and she began modeling in high school. She enrolled at Miami-Dade Community College, and wanted to study chiropractic medicine. However, being seriously injured in a car crash at age 18 made her refocus her energy on her love of acting. She moved to New York City, where she worked as a model and actress. She then studied at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and moved to Los Angeles, California in 1971.
Her first film was as a Mexican mistress in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), starring Paul Newman. Four years later, she became so disappointed with her career that she quit acting and spent the next three years working as an agent. In 1978, she planned on going to law school and later become a studio executive, but Aaron Spelling offered her a year's tuition to accept a role in the pilot of Fantasy Island (1977). She agreed, and soon after that, she landed the role of Pamela Barnes Ewing on CBS' long-running soap opera Dallas (1978). She left the series after nine years, and began her own production company, Victoria Principal Productions. She continues to work as an actress and producer, and has also created a line of skin care products and written three books about beauty and skin-care.