Teveryone is crazy about Kōji Yakusho. A star in Japan, but little known to us until award for male performance at the Cannes Film Festival for Perfect Days Of Wim Wenders (now at the top of the Italian box office and nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film).
His cleaner of public toilets in Tokyo, with minimal talkativeness and maximum inner peace, leaves his mark.
Old acquaintance of cinephiles
Kōji Yakusho and Wim Wenders in Los Angeles at a pre-Oscar evening (Getty Images).
In reality, with an effort, at least the most cinephile spectators might remember him: actor-fetish of Kiyoshi Kurosawa68 years old beautifully worn, he was the protagonist of Shall We Dance? in 1996 (the role went to Richard Gere in the Hollywood remake) and, above all, he was the protagonist Of The eelthe film by Shōhei Imamura which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1997but he was also part of the cast of Memoirs of a Geisha by Rob Marshall in 2005, Of Babel Of Alejandro González Iñárritu, with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, in 2006 and, in 2007, Silk by François Girard, based on the novel by Alessandro Baricco. Streaming addicts, however, can identify it in the Netflix series The three days after the endabout the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster.
Magical effect
A star so busy that Wim Wenders didn’t hope to get in Perfect Daysand whose interpretation he was then the first to fall in love with, so much so that he envied it – as he confessed to I Woman – his Hirayama, completely satisfied by the humble profession and the days that are always the same, between work, songs (the cassette is the one he carries with him from his youth), readings, a glass at the bar and the photos taken at the komorebithe magical iridescent effect caused by the light filtering through the trees.
“I don’t like routine”
Kōji Yakusho with Arisa Nakano in “Perfect Days” by Wim Wenders.
«But I’m not like him, who finds joy in routine. I get bored easily having to redo something I already know how to do… Even though – obviously – the actor’s job involves repetition” he immediately specifies, strictly in Japanese with a translator at his side. «Not even being alone and silent doesn’t cost him any effort, on the contrary: in the evening he goes to bed completely satisfied. When his niece breaks into his routine, he realizes that something infernal has happened to him in the past which pushed him to live a different life, however he has no resentment or anger.”
Well, what exactly happened to him? From the meeting with his sister we can only understand that he comes from a wealthy family… «To tell the truth, I never asked Wenders because it’s not important: lThe characteristic of the character is to be fully present in the moment, enjoy the moment, without dwelling on the past or projecting yourself into the future. Halfway through filming Wim mentioned something to me about the possible background and it was useful to add depth to the final scenes, but nothing that I needed to know to understand more.”
Kōji Yakusho’s first steps
Kōji Yakusho awarded at Cannes (Getty Images).
When did you realize that acting was your path? «At the age of twenty they gave me a ticket for a theater piece: it moved me incredibly, I would never have imagined that a performance could be so emotional» he explains, Kōji Hashimoto at the registry office: at the time he was employed in a local municipal office, kuyakusho in Japanese, which later inspired his stage name.
«The protagonist was Tatsuya Nakadai (legendary actor, now ninety years old, often chosen by Akira Kurosawa, Masaki Kobayashi and Kon Ichikawa, ed). Not that I immediately realized “I want to become an actor!”, but the experience pushed me to attend a lot of shows, to understand that there weren’t many great ones. (laughs). Over time I began to think that the really fun thing wasn’t watching, but being on stage. When I heard that Tatsuya was starting a course to nurture young talents, I showed up for the test: they took me! (it was one of four out of 800 requests, ed)”. Happiness… «It actually took a long time to experience the joy of acting: I’d say it happened after almost twenty years…».
Carpenter and gardener
Kōji Yakusho in a scene from “Perfect Days”.
We know about Hirayama that he loves listening to music, reading, taking photos and cutting. Do you have any hobbies? «Actually, the habit of putting twigs in a sort of paper vase is mine: when I told Wenders about it, he found it interesting to add in the script. My great passion, however, is working with wood.”
And his perfect day? «When we presented Perfect Days – precisely – in Cannes, and the audience immediately understood and appreciated. for me, who hate seeing myself on the screen, it was a relief.”
“I don’t watch my films”
Why does he hate seeing each other again? «I hate having regrets and it is inevitable that there is always something that, with hindsight, you would have done differently. I remember that Shōhei Imamura (the legendary director of the Japanese New Wave who directed it in Warm Water Under a Red Bridgeas well as in The eel, ed) prevented the actors from seeing the scenes before assembly: what was the need? I’ll look back at old movies when I retire! Although, to be honest, when they were on TV at first I only saw the flaws, while now I say to myself: “Well, I wasn’t that bad…””.
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