Early life
Alexander Hunter was born in Redmond, Washington, and spent his childhood moving with his father Seattle Seahawk's former running back Al Hunter (American football) across the western United States, including Kent, Federal Way, Milton, and Sparks, Nevada, before returning to Olympia, Washington, and completing his senior year in Shelton. [1]
Hunter participated in sports such as American football, basketball, boxing, and kickboxing, and developed an early interest in video games and anime, which led to a broader fascination with Japanese culture. [2] He began studying Japanese in high school and later earned a Bachelor of Arts in Japanese Studies at Western Washington University.
Hunter initially attended Whitworth University in Spokane before transferring to Western Washington University, where he retired from college football and became involved in performing arts through theater-major roommates. [3] He spent six months in Japan as part of a study abroad program. [4] Following his graduation in 2011, he returned to Japan in 2012, working first as a school teacher in Nishimera before transitioning into the entertainment industry. [3] [5]
Career
As a bilingual performer, Hunter has appeared in numerous Japanese TV, film, video games, commercials, and theater productions.
He is best known for his role as David in the Amazon Prime Video comedy series The Benza and its spin-off Benza English . He also voiced the character in the accompanying video game The Benza RPG . In addition to his work on the series, Hunter has appeared in a number of Japanese television educational shows, including Omotenashi no Kiso Eigo on NHK Educational TV, where he played the regular role of Logan, and Nogizaka Cinemas: STORY of 46 on Fuji Television's on-demand service FOD. In 2020, Hunter won the "Rising Star" award at Seoul Webfest 2020 for his role as David in Benza English. [6]
In film, Hunter portrayed Owen Scott in the 2019 romantic drama Little Nights, Little Love, and appeared in 1446: An Eternal Minute, as well as in supporting roles in High & Low: The Movie (2016) and its sequel End of Sky (2017).
As a voice actor, Hunter provided the English-language voice of Ultraman Ken in Ultra Galaxy Fight: The Absolute Conspiracy, and has contributed to narration and voiceover projects, including the Tokyo Dome’s TenQ Space Museum. [7]
Hunter also works as a reporter and has been featured on the NHK World travel show Trails to Oishii Tokyo [2] as well as Getting Dirty in Japan with The Benza co-stars Janni Olsson and Christopher McCombs. He additionally writes a semi-regular gardening column in The Empowerment Network magazine. [4]
In 2024, Hunter moved to Sydney, Australia [8] [9] where he continues to work in entertainment including a role in the upcoming feature film Echo 8 Beyond. [10] He was represented by Free Wave Co., Ltd in Tokyo, Japan. [11]
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
