As part of the preparations for the drama SP and the campaign for people to give more thought to stopping bullying, people who had been bullied before were interviewed and their input was used to increase the realistic feel of this story. In the SP, Shigeo is unable to hold a permanent job so he can only work part time and would feel panicky when he sees people in school uniforms due to his psychological trauma. Fujiwara praised the scriptwriter Sakurai Tsuyoshi for his script which made it easy for him to identify with Shigeo's problems and visualise the impact of being thrown into the sea for more than 10 years and being unable to get out of it. As such, he feels that this drama SP will be a signature work for him and is happy to be able to work with Narumi and the crew in this production.
In a scene where both Fujiwara and Narumi had to dive into the sea, the filming was done in October thus it was pretty cold for them. In particular, Fujiwara had to jump in first before Narumi could follow suit thus he had to force himself to do it even though he was afraid of heights and had to jump into the sea from a high point. In addition, the freezing sea made things worse and there was no room for a rehearsal nor retake. As such, he was particularly impressed with Narumi who went through the scene without any complaints and issues and joked that he was led along by her instead of the other way around.
Source: Cinema Cafe
Please correct me if I'm wrong, though having lot of famous or successful works under his/her name there will be only 1 signature work for each actor/actress right? anyway just curious because it's unexpected for me that Fujiwara Tatsuya doesn't think his role as Light Yagami in Death Note as his signature work. Though, well, I acknowledged that it's more of Matsuyama Kenichi's role as L that shines brightly from that work. I think it's interesting that the like of Fujiwara and Matsuda Shota who have worked for so many dramas & movies, but themselves still searching for their signature work, is it only their actor's spirit or they really have no signature work yet?
ReplyDeleteHi Aqi, I think we can probably see it as like this. Not all actors will ever get a signature work under their belt. For those lucky ones who do, I'm sure that they won't be content with having just one such signature work in their entire career because nobody wants to be a one-hit wonder. In addition, to be unable to come up with more than one signature work probably undermines the value of his career because it seems to suggest that he cannot surpass his past successes e.g. Oda Yuji whose signature works like "Odoru Daisousasen" and "Tokyo Love Story" were from a long time ago. That is also why we hear so much about how actors are reluctant to keep playing the same character for a long period of time because they tend to get stereotyped and the viewers would have difficulty accepting them in another role (since the impression of them in those hit roles would be very hard to erase). If rumours were indeed true, this was probably why Sakai Masato was so reluctant to sign on for another sequel to "Hanzawa Naoki" and would rather take on other projects.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of Fujiwara, I agree that he did rather well in the Death Note movies but you also can't deny that Matsuyama Kenichi did hog a lot of the limelight back then. Besides, the Death Note movies are already from 10 years ago so it's no wonder that he wants to seek a breakthrough in his career by having another signature work. Likewise for Matsuda who gained a fair bit of attention through Liar Game, he is probably in search of another work which can immediately bring his name to mind once it's mentioned.
Ah! a one-hit wonder! I agree, nobody wants to be a one-hit wonder. Now, I kinda understand some of the point of view. Thank you for willing to reply and discussing this topic with me. And also how to decide which work is their signature work, solely from the acting skill of how real they acted their own role, or from the general public acceptance of the whole work shown with numbers and popularity? I wonder if Kimura Takuya could be considered as actor with many signature works? he has many works that very popular in terms of viewership rating, but personally thinking his acting is not that great since the roles he played were not differs much from his usual self.
ReplyDeleteWell, much as I think a hit movie in terms of box office takings or a drama with high ratings can be considered as a signature work for an actor, I think recognition in the form of good reviews or awards for the acting may be more important to most actors. In Kimura's case, he did have a string of highly-rated dramas but they can't be entirely attributable to him alone. Especially when it's been said all along that his popularity played a much bigger role in the success of those dramas rather than his acting, it's only natural that he tries to challenge himself more as he grows older and wants to prove his worth as an actor.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the most ideal scenario is to have a movie or drama which did well in terms of performance and reviews. A recent example which comes to mind would be Okada Junichi's "Eien no Zero" which was the No.1 movie in the box office and let him earn a number of Best Actor awards.