Ken Watanabe @kenwatanabe is a Japanese actor.
@kenwatanabe____75 posts58.6K followers0 followingKen Watanabe 渡辺謙actorDMは事務所管理です。
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Personal information
Born October 21, 1959 (age 64)
Hirokami (currently Uonuma), Niigata, Japan
Occupation Actor
Years active 1979–present
Spouses
Yumiko Watanabe
(m. 1983; div. 2005)
Kaho Minami
(m. 2005; div. 2018)
Children
Dai Watanabe
Anne Watanabe
渡辺 謙
KEN WATANABE
1959年10月21日、新潟県北魚沼郡広神村（現：魚沼市）生まれ。
演劇集団“円”研究生を経て、1980年、演劇「悲劇・ブリタニキュス」でデビュー。
渡辺 謙
主な出演作品
1981
演劇「下谷万年町物語」
1984
映画「瀬戸内少年野球団」
1985
演劇「ピサロ」
1985
映画「タンポポ」
1986
ドラマ「はね駒」
1986
映画「海と毒薬」
1987
大河ドラマ「独眼竜政宗」
1991~93
ドラマ「仕掛人・藤枝梅安」
1992~98
ドラマ「わが町」
1993~94
大河ドラマ「炎立つ」
1993~97
ドラマ「鍵師」
1995~99
ドラマ「御家人斬九郎」
1998
映画「絆 -きずな-」
1998
ドキュメンタリー「南米ペルー“心の旅”2000km」
2000
ドラマ「池袋ウエストゲートパーク」
2000
ドキュメンタリー「日照時間ゼロ！ 酷寒の北極30日」
2001
映画「千年の恋 ひかる源氏物語」
2002
映画「陽はまた昇る」
2003
映画「ラストサムライ」
2005
映画「SAYURI」
2005
映画「バットマン ビギンズ」
2005
映画「北の零年」
2006
映画「硫黄島からの手紙」
2006
映画「明日の記憶」
2007
ドラマ「星ひとつの夜」
2009
映画「沈まぬ太陽」
2010
ドラマ「塀の中の中学校」
2011
ドキュメンタリー「“9.11テロ” に立ち向かった日系人」
2010
映画「インセプション」
2011
映画「シャンハイ」
2012
映画「はやぶさ 遥かなる帰還」
2012/13/16/21
ドキュメンタリー「東日本大震災 僕に、できること」
2012
ドラマ「負けて、勝つ」
2013
演劇「ホロヴィッツとの対話」
2013
映画「許されざる者」
2014
映画「GODZILLA ゴジラ」
2015〜16/18~19
ミュージカル「The King and I 王様と私」ニューヨーク、ロンドン、東京公演
2015
ドキュメンタリー「プロフェッショナル 仕事の流儀」
2016
映画「怒り」
2016
映画「追憶の森」
2018
大河ドラマ「西郷どん」
2019
映画「ゴジラ キング オブ モンスターズ」
2020
ドラマ「逃亡者」
2020/21
演劇「ピサロ」
2021
映画「Fukushima50」
2022
ドラマ「TOKYO VICE」
2023
ドキュメンタリー「役者道」
主な受賞歴
日本アカデミー賞
最優秀主演男優賞
2006『明日の記憶』
2009『沈まぬ太陽』
最優秀助演男優賞
2020『Fukushima 50』
優秀主演男優賞
2013『許されざる者』
優秀助演男優賞
1998『絆 -きずな-』
2001『千年の恋 ひかる源氏物語』
2004『陽はまた昇る』
優秀作品賞
2006『明日の記憶』
ブルーリボン賞
主演男優賞
2006『明日の記憶』
特別賞
2003年『ラスト サムライ』
その他の賞
キネマ旬報ベスト・テン 主演男優賞
2006『明日の記憶』
報知映画賞 主演男優賞
2006『明日の記憶』
2009『沈まぬ太陽』
日刊スポーツ映画大賞 主演男優賞
2006『明日の記憶』
エランドール賞 新人賞
1987『海と毒薬』
新藤兼人賞 プロデューサー賞
2006『明日の記憶』
Gallery
Gianna Dior on What It’s Like Working with The Biggest BBC in The World
She Finessed *9* Food Dates Out Of Him?!
YouTube
I Spent a Week with Japan's BIGGEST Movie Star | Ken Watanabe
【トークノーカット】アンセル・エルゴート、渡辺謙、菊地凛子、窪塚洋介らが登壇「TOKYO VICE Season2」舞台あいさつ
Godzilla 2014: Ken Watanabe "Dr. Ishiro Serizawa" On Set Movie Interview | ScreenSlam
About
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.
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. Watanabe reprised his role at the London Palladium in June 2018.
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. 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 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. 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".
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 Engeki-Shudan En theatre troupe. While with the troupe, he was cast as the hero in the play Shimodani Mannencho Monogatari, directed by the acclaimed Yukio Ninagawa. 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' 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. His performance as Lord Katsumoto earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
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. In 2019, he starred in two other Hollywood blockbusters Pokémon Detective Pikachu and Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
In 2023, he returned to work with director Gareth Edwards again in the science fiction action film, The Creator.
Television
Watanabe appears in Tokyo Vice, a television series 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. Tokyo Vice stars Ansel Elgort as Adelstein, an American journalist who embeds himself into the Tokyo Vice police squad to expose corruption. 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.
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.
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, just after they had attended a New York City premiere of his film Sayuri together.
Watanabe at the premiere of Inception in July 2010
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.
On May 17, 2018, Kaho Minami's agency announced that Minami and Watanabe had divorced after he had admitted to having an extramarital affair.
In June 2023, Watanabe remarried for the third time, with a woman who is 21 years his junior, after dating for 9 years.
Philanthropy
On March 13, 2011, he launched a YouTube page to raise awareness about the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and the subsequent Fukushima nuclear disaster and invited celebrities to add their videos for triple tragedy in Japan. In his video in English, he made a call to action to support the victims of triple disaster and to raise funds in the relief effort. In conjunction amidst the Fukushima crisis, he has also created his own website for the cause.
Health issues
In 1989, Watanabe was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. The cancer returned in 1994, but he later recovered.
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 leukemia. At a press conference held on May 23, 2006, he said he was in "good" condition but was still undergoing treatment.
In 2016, while on a break from performing in a Broadway production of The King and I, Watanabe was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He subsequently announced on February 9, 2016, that he would postpone scheduled performances in order to undergo the necessary treatment. Due to the early diagnosis, surgery was successfully able to remove the cancer.
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)
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
2023 Kensuke's Kingdom Kensuke Voice role
The Creator Harun
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
1991 Takeda Shingen Narrator TV movie
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 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
2024 Ikitoshi Ikerumono Sho Naruse TV movie
2025 Berabou Tanuma Okitsugu Taiga drama
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))
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
2002 25th Japan Academy Film Prize Best Supporting Actor Sennen no Koi Story of Genji Nominated
2003 26th Japan Academy Film Prize Best Supporting Actor Hi Wa Mata Noboru Nominated
Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Awards Best Supporting Actor The Last Samurai Nominated
2004 Academy Awards Best Supporting Actor Nominated
Saturn Awards Best Supporting Actor Nominated
Blue Ribbon Awards Special Award Won
Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards Best Supporting Actor Nominated
Golden Globe Awards Best Supporting Actor Nominated
Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards Best Supporting Actor Nominated
Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards Best Supporting Actor Nominated
Satellite Awards Best Supporting Actor Nominated
Screen Actors Guild Awards Best Supporting Actor Nominated
Television Drama Academy Awards (Winter) Best Supporting Actor Suna no Utsuwa Won
2006 31st Hochi Film Awards Best Actor Memories of Tomorrow Won
Nikkan Sports Film Awards Best Actor Won
2007 Blue Ribbon Awards Best Actor Won
30th Japan Academy Film Prize Best Actor Won
Fujimoto Prize Special Prize Won
Kinema Junpo Awards Best Actor Won
2009 34th Hochi Film Awards Best Actor Shizumanu Taiyo Won
2010 33rd Japan Academy Film Prize Best Actor Won
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
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
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