fiction.wikisort.org - Actor

Ken Watanabe (渡辺 謙, Watanabe Ken, born October 21, 1959) is a Japanese actor. To English-speaking audiences, he is known for playing tragic hero characters, such as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi in Letters from Iwo Jima and Lord Katsumoto Moritsugu in The Last Samurai, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Among other awards, he has won the Japan Academy Film Prize for Best Actor twice, in 2007 for Memories of Tomorrow and in 2010 for Shizumanu Taiyō. He is also known for his roles in Christopher Nolan's films Batman Begins and Inception, as well as Memoirs of a Geisha, and Pokémon Detective Pikachu.

Ken Watanabe
Watanabe at the New York premiere of Memories of Tomorrow in 2007
Born	(1959-10-21) October 21, 1959 (age 63) Hirokami, Niigata, Japan
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1979–present
Spouses	Yumiko Watanabe ​ ​ (m. 1983; div. 2005)​ Kaho Minami ​ ​ (m. 2005; div. 2018)​
Children	2, including Anne

In 2014, he starred in the reboot Godzilla as Dr. Ishiro Serizawa, a role he reprised in the sequel, Godzilla: King of the Monsters. He lent his voice to the fourth and fifth installments of the Transformers franchise respectively, Transformers: Age of Extinction and Transformers: The Last Knight, as Decepticon-turned-Autobot Drift. In 2022, he starred in the HBO Max crime drama series Tokyo Vice.

He made his Broadway debut in April 2015 in Lincoln Center Theater's revival production of The King and I in the title role. In 2015, Watanabe received his first Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical at the 69th Tony Awards for his role as The King. He is the first Japanese actor to be nominated in this category.[1] Watanabe reprised his role at the London Palladium in June 2018.[2][3]

Early life

Watanabe was born on October 21, 1959 in the mountain village of Koide in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. His mother was a school teacher and his father taught calligraphy.[4] Due to a number of relocations for his parents' work, he spent his childhood in the villages of Irihirose and Sumon, both now part of the city of Uonuma, and in Takada, now part of the city of Jōetsu. He attended Niigata Prefectural Koide High School, where he was a member of the concert band club, playing trumpet, which he had played since childhood.

After graduation from high school, in 1978 he aimed to enter Musashino Academia Musicae, a conservatory in Tokyo. However, he had never received a formal musical education, and because his father became seriously ill when he was in junior high school and was unable to work, which meant that his family could no longer afford to pay for his music lessons.[5] Because of these problems, Watanabe was forced to give up his intention of entering the conservatory. He said of the decision: "I had to give up my musical aspirations. I realised I had no talent as a musician. But I still wanted to find a way to be creative, so I decided to try acting".[5]

Career

Japanese roles

After graduating from high school in 1978, Watanabe moved to Tokyo to begin his acting career, by enrolling in the drama school run by the En theatre troupe.[5] While with the troupe, he was cast as the hero in the play Shimodani Mannencho Monogatari, directed by the acclaimed Yukio Ninagawa.[5] The role attracted critical and popular notice.

In 1982, he made his first TV appearance in Michinaru Hanran (Unknown Rebellion), and his first appearance on TV as a samurai in Mibu no koiuta. He made his feature-film debut in 1984 with MacArthur's Children.

Watanabe is mostly known in Japan for playing samurai, as in the 1987 Dokuganryu Masamune (One eyed dragon, Masamune) the 50-episode NHK taiga drama. He played the lead character, Matsudaira Kurō, in the television jidaigeki Gokenin Zankurō, which ran for several seasons. He has gone on to garner acclaim in such historical dramas as Oda Nobunaga, Chūshingura, and the movie Bakumatsu Junjo Den.

In 1989, while filming Haruki Kadokawa's Heaven and Earth, Watanabe was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia. He returned to acting while simultaneously undergoing chemotherapy treatments, but in 1991 suffered a relapse.

As his health improved his career picked back up. He co-starred with Kōji Yakusho in the 1998 Kizuna, for which he was nominated for the Japanese Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

In 2002, he quit the En (Engeki-Shudan En) theatre group where he had his start and joined the K Dash agency. The film Sennen no Koi (Thousand-year Love, based on The Tale of Genji) earned him another Japanese Academy Award nomination.

In 2006, he won Best Lead Actor at the Japanese Academy Awards for his role in Memories of Tomorrow (Ashita no Kioku), in which he played a patient with Alzheimer's disease.

International films

Watanabe was introduced to most Western audiences in the 2003 American film The Last Samurai, set in 19th Century Japan.[6][7] His performance as Lord Katsumoto earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.[8]

Watanabe appeared in the 2005 film Memoirs of a Geisha, playing Chairman Iwamura. That same year, he also played the decoy of Ra's al Ghul in Christopher Nolan's Batman film reboot, Batman Begins. In 2006, he starred in Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima, playing Tadamichi Kuribayashi. He has voiced Ra's al Ghul in the Batman Begins video game. He has filmed advertisements for American Express, Yakult, Canon and NTT DoCoMo. In 2004, he was featured in People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People edition. In 2009, he appeared in The Vampire's Assistant. In 2010, he co-starred in Inception, where he stars as Saito, a mark-turned-benefactor businessman of the film's heist team. In 2014, he starred in two Hollywood blockbusters Godzilla and Transformers: Age of Extinction.[9] In 2019, he starred in two other Hollywood blockbusters Pokémon Detective Pikachu and Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

Television

Watanabe appears in Tokyo Vice, a television series[10] based on the non-fiction book by Jake Adelstein and written for television by J.T. Rogers. The ten-part series was produced by HBO Max and is distributed by HBO Max and in Japan by Wowow.[11] Tokyo Vice stars Ansel Elgort as Adelstein, an American journalist who embeds himself into the Tokyo Vice police squad to expose corruption.[12][13] Ken is currently starring in the NHK World Japan's comedy You're a Genius!.

In April 2019, it was announced that Warner Bros. International Television Production and Japan's TV Asahi network were teaming up to remake The Fugitive (1993). Watanabe is set to star in the upcoming remake, taking place in present-day Tokyo just before the opening of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The broadcast date has yet to be announced.[14]

Philanthropy

On March 13, 2011, he launched a YouTube page to raise awareness about the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and invited celebrities to add their videos.[15] In his video in English, he made a call to action to support the victims and to raise funds in the relief effort.[16] In conjunction, he has created his own website for the cause.[17]

Personal life

In 1983, Watanabe married his first wife, Yumiko. In September 2005, following two years of arbitration, he and Yumiko were divorced. The couple had two children, a son, Dai Watanabe (born 1984), who is an actor, and his daughter Anne Watanabe (born 1986) who is an actress and fashion model. In August 2008, Dai had his first child, a son, making Ken a grandfather at the age of 48. A daughter was born to Dai in March 2010. In May 2016, Watanabe's daughter by his first marriage, Anne, gave birth to twin girls. In November 2017 she gave birth to a son, giving Watanabe five grandchildren altogether.[5]

He met his second wife, Kaho Minami, when they were both acting in a suspense drama for TV Tokyo. They married on 3 December 2005. The marriage was announced by their agencies on 7 December,[18] just after they had attended a New York City premiere of his film Sayuri together.[19]

Watanabe formally adopted Minami's son from her previous marriage to director Jinsei Tsuji, and for a time the three of them lived in Los Angeles. In order to increase the amount of time the family could spend together, considering Ken's work requiring him to travel so much, they later returned to Japan. Initially Minami and Ken did not hold a wedding ceremony, but in 2010 they announced that they had held a ceremony on August 1 in Los Angeles.[20]

On May 17, 2018, Kaho Minami's agency announced that Minami and Watanabe had divorced after he had admitted to having an extramarital affair.[21][22]

Health issues

In 1989 Watanabe was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. The cancer returned in 1994, but he later recovered.[23]

In 2006 Watanabe revealed in his autobiography Dare? - Who Am I? that prior to commencing work on The Last Samurai, it was discovered that he had contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion he received while undergoing treatment for his leukaemia.[5] At a press conference held May 23, 2006 in Tokyo's Ginza district, he said he was in good condition but was still undergoing treatment.[24]

In 2016, while on a break from performing in a Broadway production of The King and I, Watanabe was diagnosed with stomach cancer.[5] He subsequently announced on February 9, 2016, that he would postpone scheduled performances in order to undergo the necessary treatment.[25] Due to the early diagnosis, surgery was successfully able to remove the cancer.[5]

Filmography

Films

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1984	MacArthur's Children	Tetsuo Nakai
1985	Kekkon Annai Mystery	Funayama Tetsuya / Masakazu Sekine
	Tampopo	Gun
1986	The Sea and Poison	Toda
1998	Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald	Raita Onuki, Truck Driver
	Kizuna	Detective Sako Akio
2000	Space Travelers	Sakamaki
2001	Genji: A Thousand-Year Love	Fujiwara Michinaga / Fujiwara Nobutaka
2002	Dawn of a New Day: The Man Behind VHS	Ōkubo
2003	The Last Samurai	Katsumoto Moritsugu	Hollywood debut
	T.R.Y.	Masanobu Azuma
2005	Memoirs of a Geisha	Chairman Ken Iwamura
	Batman Begins	Ra's al Ghul's Decoy
	Year One in the North	Hideaki Komatsubara
2006	Memories of Tomorrow	Masayuki Saeki
	Letters from Iwo Jima	General Tadamichi Kuribayashi
2009	The Unbroken	Hajime Onchi
	Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant	Mr. Hibernius Tall
2010	Shanghai	Captain Tanaka
	Inception	Mr. Saito
2012	Hayabusa: The Long Voyage Home	Professor Yamaguchi Junichiro
2013	Unforgiven	Jubei Kamata
2014	Godzilla	Dr. Ishiro Serizawa
	Transformers: Age of Extinction	Drift (voice)[26]
2015	Sea of Trees	Takumi Nakamura
2016	Rage	Yōhei Maki
2017	Transformers: The Last Knight	Drift (voice)
2018	Isle of Dogs	Head Surgeon (voice)
	The Samurai of Tsushima	The Emperor of Japan (voice)
	Bel Canto	Katsumi Hosokawa
2019	Detective Pikachu	Lt. Hide Yoshida	Also dubbed for himself in Japanese
	Godzilla: King of the Monsters	Dr. Ishiro Serizawa
2020	Fukushima 50	Masao Yoshida	In post-production[27]
TBA	Kensuke's Kingdom	Kensuke	Voice role; In production
2023	True Love		Post-production[28]

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1983	Taiyō ni Hoero!	Yūji Shimizu	Episode 574
1984	Sanga Moyu	Takeshi Kusuda	Taiga drama
1986	Hanekonma	Genzō Onodera	Asadora
1987	Dokuganryū Masamune	Date Masamune	Taiga drama
1989	Oda Nobunaga	Oda Nobunaga	TV movie
1990–1992	Baian the Assassin	Baian Fujieda
1993–1994	Homura Tatsu	Fujiwara no Tsunekiyo / Fujiwara no Yasuhira	Taiga drama
1995–2002	Gokenin Zankurō	Zankurō Matsudaira
2000	Ikebukuro West Gate Park	Inspector Yokoyama
2001	Chūshingura 1/47		Cameo, TV movie
	Hōjō Tokimune	Hōjō Tokiyori	Taiga drama
2004	Suna no Utsuwa	Shūichirō Imanishi
2009–2011	Saka no Ue no Kumo	Narrator[29]	Taiga special drama
2018	Segodon	Shimazu Nariakira	Taiga drama
2019	An Artist of the Floating World	Masuji Ono	TV movie
2020	The Fugitive	Kazuki Kakurai	Mini-series
2022	Tokyo Vice	Hiroto Katagiri	Also executive producer

Video games

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2005	Batman Begins	Ra's al Ghul's decoy

Stage

• Britannicus henso (1980)
• Shitaya mannencho monogatari (1981)
• Fuyu no raion (The Lion in Winter) (1981)
• Pajaze (1981)
• Platonof (1982)
• Kafun netsu (1982)
• Pizarro (1985)
• Hamlet (1988)
• Hamlet no gakuya -anten (2000)
• Towa part1-kanojo (2000)
• Towa part2-kanojo to kare (2001)
• Dialogue with Horowitz (2013)
• The King and I (2015)
• The King and I (2016)
• The King and I (2018)
• The Royal Hunt of the Sun (2020)

Dubbing

• First Blood (1985 NTV edition) (John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone))[30]

Awards and nominations

Year	Organization	Award	Work(s)	Result
1987	11th Elan d'or Awards	Newcomer Award	Himself	Won
1999	22nd Japan Academy Film Prize	Best Supporting Actor	Kizuna	Nominated[31]
2002	25th Japan Academy Film Prize	Best Supporting Actor	Sennen no Koi Story of Genji	Nominated[31]
2003	26th Japan Academy Film Prize	Best Supporting Actor	Hi Wa Mata Noboru	Nominated[31]
	Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Awards	Best Supporting Actor	The Last Samurai	Nominated[31]
2004	Academy Awards	Best Supporting Actor		Nominated[31]
	Saturn Awards	Best Supporting Actor		Nominated[31]
	Blue Ribbon Awards	Special Award		Won[31]
	Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards	Best Supporting Actor		Nominated[31]
	Golden Globe Awards	Best Supporting Actor		Nominated[31]
	Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards	Best Supporting Actor		Nominated[31]
	Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards	Best Supporting Actor		Nominated[31]
	Satellite Awards	Best Supporting Actor		Nominated[31]
	Screen Actors Guild Awards	Best Supporting Actor		Nominated[31]
	Television Drama Academy Awards (Winter)	Best Supporting Actor	Suna no Utsuwa	Won[32]
2006	31st Hochi Film Awards	Best Actor	Memories of Tomorrow	Won[31]
	Nikkan Sports Film Awards	Best Actor		Won[31]
2007	Blue Ribbon Awards	Best Actor		Won[33]
	30th Japan Academy Film Prize	Best Actor		Won[34]
	Fujimoto Prize	Special Prize		Won[35]
	Kinema Junpo Awards	Best Actor		Won[36]
2009	34th Hochi Film Awards	Best Actor	Shizumanu Taiyo	Won[37]
2010	33rd Japan Academy Film Prize	Best Actor		Won[38]
2014	37th Japan Academy Film Prize	Best Actor	Unforgiven	Nominated
2015	Tony Awards	Best Actor in a Musical	The King and I	Nominated
2016	Grammy Awards	Best Musical Theater Album		Nominated[39]
	41st Hochi Film Awards	Best Actor	Rage	Nominated
2019	Olivier Awards	Best Actor in a Musical	The King and I	Nominated
2021	44th Japan Academy Film Prize	Best Supporting Actor	Fukushima 50	Won

See also

•  Japan portal
•  Film portal
•  Theatre portal
•  Biography portal

References

External links

• Ken Watanabe at IMDb
• Ken Watanabe at the Internet Broadway Database
• Ken Watanabe at the Japanese Movie Database
• Ken Watanabe interview at USA Today
• Ken Watanabe interview at About.com

На других языках

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[de] Ken Watanabe

Ken Watanabe (jap.: 渡辺謙 .mw-parser-output .Latn{font-family:"Akzidenz Grotesk","Arial","Avant Garde Gothic","Calibri","Futura","Geneva","Gill Sans","Helvetica","Lucida Grande","Lucida Sans Unicode","Lucida Grande","Stone Sans","Tahoma","Trebuchet","Univers","Verdana"}Watanabe Ken; * 21. Oktober 1959 in Koide, Landkreis Kitauonuma (heute: Uonuma), Präfektur Niigata) ist ein japanischer Schauspieler. In Japan als Darsteller in Komödien, Dramen und Actionfilmen etabliert, trat er auch in mehreren Hollywoodfilmen auf, meist in prägnanten Nebenrollen.

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- [en] Ken Watanabe

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[es] Ken Watanabe

Ken Watanabe (渡辺 謙, Watanabe Ken?) (Koide, Niigata; 21 de octubre de 1959) es un actor japonés, principalmente conocido por sus roles de héroe trágico en las películas El último samurái (2003) y Cartas desde Iwo Jima (2006), y sus actuaciones en Memorias de una geisha (2005) e Inception (2010).

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[ru] Ватанабэ, Кэн

Кэн Ватанабэ (яп. 渡辺 謙 Ватанабэ Кэн, род. 21 октября 1959 (1959-10-21)) — японский актёр театра, кино и телевидения. За рубежом наиболее известен ролями предводителя повстанцев и даймё Кацумото в фильме «Последний самурай», генерала Курибаяси в фильме «Письма с Иводзимы» и предпринимателя Сайто в фильме «Начало». Многократный лауреат «Japanese Academy Awards», номинант на премии «Оскар» и «Золотой глобус» в категории «лучшая мужская роль второго плана» в 2004 году, за роль в фильме «Последний самурай».

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