Mari Yamamoto (born February 4, 1986) is a Japanese actress and journalist.
Born in Japan, Yamamoto would move with her family to London in 1991, before eventually returning to live in Tokyo in 1994 at the age of 8. She described the experience as akin to being an outsider, where she'd be considered "very Japanese everywhere in the world" but "wasn’t quite Japanese enough" in Japan itself. [1] [2]
Yamamoto would study international relations at the International Christian University in Tokyo, where she would obtain her Bachelor of Arts, [2] before moving to New York City to study method acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. [3] During this time she was also part of The Bats acting company at The Flea Theater. [4] She returned to Tokyo following this, and began working in journalism, writing articles for The Daily Beast alongside American journalist Jake Adelstein. [5] [3] Adelstein's book Tokyo Vice was being adapted into a television series for HBO Max, which would see Yamamoto recruited to work on the show's writing staff. She would become a producer on the series in its second season. [3]
In 2022, Yamamoto starred in a recurring role in the Apple TV+ series Pachinko as Hana. [6] That same year she would join the cast of Apple's Monarch: Legacy of Monsters . [7] In March 2024, she was cast to star opposite Brendan Fraser in the film Rental Family . [8]
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2014 | Allure | Hana | |
2015 | Bourek | Fujiko | |
Sayonara | — | ||
2017 | Jimami Tofu | Yuki | |
2021 | Kate | Kanako | |
TBA | Rental Family † | Post-production |
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2022–2024 | Tokyo Vice | — | Script consultant (season 1); associate producer (season 2) |
2022 | Pachinko | Hana | Recurring role, 5 episodes |
2023–2024 | Monarch: Legacy of Monsters | Keiko Miura | Main role, 8 episodes |
Ken Watanabe 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.
Brendan James Fraser is an American-Canadian actor. Fraser had his breakthrough in 1992 with the comedy Encino Man and the drama School Ties. He gained further prominence for his starring roles in the comedies With Honors (1994) and George of the Jungle (1997) and emerged as a star playing Rick O'Connell in The Mummy trilogy (1999–2008). He took on dramatic roles in Gods and Monsters (1998), The Quiet American (2002), and Crash (2004), and further fantasy roles in Bedazzled (2000) and Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008).
The Sixth Yamaguchi-gumi is Japan's largest yakuza organization. It is named after its founder Harukichi Yamaguchi. Its origins can be traced back to a loose labor union for dockworkers in Kobe before World War II.
Sega Sammy Holdings Inc. is a Japanese global holding company and conglomerate formed from the merger of Sega and Sammy Corporation in 2004. Both companies are involved in the amusement industry.
Maki Horikita is a Japanese former actress. During her career from 2003 until 2017, she starred in numerous Japanese television dramas, television and magazine advertisements, and movies, including roles in Nobuta wo Produce, Hanazakari no Kimitachi e and Umechan Sensei.
Gugulethu Sophia Mbatha-Raw is an English actress. She began acting at the National Youth Music Theatre and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and gained acclaim for her roles as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Octavia in Anthony and Cleopatra in 2005 at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. She made her West End and Broadway debut portraying Ophelia in Hamlet in 2009. For her role as the titular character in Jessica Swale's 2015 play Nell Gwynn, she received an Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress nomination.
Min Jin Lee is a Korean American author and journalist based in Harlem, New York City; her work frequently deals with the Korean diaspora. She is best known for writing Free Food for Millionaires (2007) and Pachinko (2017), a finalist for the National Book Award, and runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. In 2024, the New York Times asked 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers to vote for 100 Best Books of the 21st Century and Lee's book Pachinko was number 15 on the list. Pachinko was number 5 on the Reader's Version of 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. The Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum awarded the 2024 Fitzgerald Prize for Literary Excellence to Min Jin Lee, recognizing her for continuing the American storytelling tradition with the craft, wit, and social insight exemplified by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Joshua Lawrence "Jake" Adelstein is an American journalist, crime writer, and blogger who has spent most of his career in Japan. He is the author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, which inspired the 2022 Max original streaming television series Tokyo Vice, starring Ansel Elgort as Adelstein.
Joby Harold is an English screenwriter, producer and director who runs Safehouse Pictures with his producing partner, Tory Tunnell. The company was co-founded in 2005.
Yusaku Maezawa is a Japanese billionaire entrepreneur and art collector. He founded Start Today in 1998 and launched the online fashion retail website Zozotown in 2004, now Japan's largest.
Ikumi Yoshimatsu is a Japanese actress, stunt woman, book author, opinion leader, social activist and beauty queen who was crowned Miss International 2012 in Okinawa. It was Japan's first Miss International win in the 52-year history of the pageant.
Ansel Elgort is an American actor and singer. He began his acting career with a supporting role in the horror film Carrie (2013). He gained wider recognition for starring as a teenage cancer patient in the romantic drama film The Fault in Our Stars (2014) and for his supporting role in The Divergent Series (2014–2016).
Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan is a 2009 memoir by Jake Adelstein of his years living in Tokyo as the first non-Japanese reporter working for one of Japan's largest newspapers, Yomiuri Shimbun. It was published by Random House and Pantheon Books. Max adapted the memoir into a 2022 television series. According to Gavin J. Blair of The Hollywood Reporter, there were individuals that disputed whether certain events in the book happened as stated.
Maya Erskine is an American actress, singer, activist, and writer. She is known for her roles as Maggie in Man Seeking Woman, Mikki in Betas, and Mizu in Blue Eye Samurai. From 2019 to 2021, she starred in Hulu's original TV comedy series PEN15 alongside Anna Konkle; the duo, who co-created, co-wrote, and co-executive produced the series, played fictional versions of their 13-year-old selves. The series received critical acclaim and was nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2024, she began starring as Jane Smith in the Prime Video series Mr. & Mrs. Smith, for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
Pachinko is the second novel by Harlem-based author and journalist Min Jin Lee. Published in 2017, Pachinko is an epic historical fiction novel following a Korean family who immigrates to Japan. The story features an ensemble of characters who encounter racism, discrimination, stereotyping, and other aspects of the 20th-century Korean experience of Japan.
Tokyo Vice is an American crime drama television series created by J. T. Rogers and based on the 2009 memoir by Jake Adelstein. It stars Ansel Elgort, Ken Watanabe, Rachel Keller, Hideaki Itō, Show Kasamatsu, Ella Rumpf, Rinko Kikuchi, Tomohisa Yamashita, Miki Maya, and Yōsuke Kubozuka. The series centers on Adelstein (Elgort), an American journalist investigating the yakuza in Tokyo. The first season of Tokyo Vice premiered on April 7, 2022, on HBO Max, and the second season premiered on February 8, 2024, on Max. The series received generally positive reviews, with praise for its setting, aesthetic, and characters. In June 2024, the series was canceled after two seasons.
Anna Sawai is a Japanese actress and singer. Born in New Zealand, she moved to Japan with her family at age 10. She landed her first acting role at age 11 as the title character in the 2004 Nippon TV production of Annie. Sawai later made her film debut in James McTeigue's 2009 martial arts film Ninja Assassin.
Pachinko is an American drama television series created by Soo Hugh based on the 2017 novel by Min Jin Lee. The series premiered on Apple TV+ on March 25, 2022. It received critical acclaim, particularly for its cinematography, writing, and the performances of the cast. The second season premiered on August 23, 2024.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is an American monster television series created by Chris Black and Matt Fraction and produced by Legendary Television. Based on Godzilla by Toho Co., Ltd, it is the sixth installment and second television series in the Monsterverse franchise. Following the events of Godzilla (2014), the series follows members of the Monarch organization as they encounter Godzilla and other monsters called Titans, across a half century.
Rental Family is an upcoming American comedy-drama film directed and co-written by Hikari and starring Brendan Fraser, Mari Yamamoto, Takehiro Hira and Akira Emoto.