FEATURE｜Actor Masanobu Ando . From the movie "Day and Night" to his personal life .
DAY AND NIGHT
Actor Masanobu Ando. From the movie "Day and Night" to his personal life.
In 1996, Masanobu Ando made his debut in the lead role in Takeshi Kitano's "Kids Return". Since then, Masanobu Ando has appeared in numerous films. After a brief hiatus from acting, he has recently been remarkably active not only in movies but also on television. Ando, who professes his love of movies, took on the challenge of producing "Day and Night," a film produced by Takayuki Yamada that illuminates the yin and yang of human nature, with "good and evil" as its theme. We interviewed Ando, who decided to appear in the film after being offered the part directly by Takayuki Yamada, about his thoughts on the film and his private life, which he has not revealed much about until now.
~STORY~.
Where do good and evil come from?
Koji Akashi (Shinnosuke Abe) returns home after his father commits suicide. His father was driven to death for blowing the whistle on fraud at a major corporation, and his family is on the verge of collapse. Akashi is then approached by Kitamura (Masanobu Ando), the owner of an orphanage, who offers his help. While he takes care of the orphans as if he were their father, he is also "willing to commit crimes in order to keep the children alive. Akashi is fascinated by Kitamura, who has a moral philosophy of "being willing to commit crimes in order to keep the children alive," and is able to coexist with justice and crime. Akashi, however, is gradually driven by a desire for revenge and loses sight of the border between right and wrong.
Masanobu Ando
Born in Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture, he made his debut in 1996 in Takeshi Kitano's "Kids Return," for which he won several awards. 2012 saw him take a break from acting, but he returned to the field three years later. . In recent years, he has appeared in a wide range of films, including the drama "Code Blue -Doctor Helicopter Emergency Rescue- 3rd season" and the film "Kirakira Megane" (Sparkling Glasses). Day and Night," which was the first film Yamada Takayuki produced entirely, will be released nationwide on January 26 this year.
What parts of the film do you identify with this time around?
Masanobu Ando ()It is very difficult for me to empathize with him, but I think it is the fact that he believes what he is doing is right. As one might expect, the character of Kitamura in the play may be far removed from reality, but you may be able to relate to the fact that he lives his life with a strong feeling that he is doing the right thing and exists in his own way. . I, too, express myself despite my doubts, and I believe that what I am doing is the right thing to do. Acting is something you can only do if you believe in yourself.
If you are light or shade, which do you think you are?
Ando (Japanese name for Ando province)Well, it's a bit of both. It's not always bright, and it's not always bleak, so I feel like I'm constantly going back and forth between the two.
By the way, which is today?
Ando (Japanese name for Ando province)I had been shooting all morning today, so for the first time in a long time I came here saying, "Oh, I don't want to come today" (laughs). But I still come and go.
Do you think correctness is absolute or relative?
Ando (Japanese name for Ando province)What do you think? . I don't know. I don't feel like I can say it in one word.
Your role is about the loss of something important, but is there anything that you have lost so far that you can never get back?
Ando (Japanese name for Ando province)There are quite a few things that can't be undone, aren't there? In my life, there are times when I think, "If I had not made that wrong choice, I would not have hit rock bottom. But because I went to the bottom, I was able to crawl back up, and because of that, I was able to have a completely different experience. If I had not been able to crawl up, I probably would have lived only with regret. If you live your life, you will always have such things.
You say you are not good at socializing, but how was the atmosphere on set?
Ando (Japanese name for Ando province)This time, the producer, Takayuki Yamada, offered me the film directly, and I felt that I had to show Takayuki the skills I have at the moment. I had no choice but to refuse the offer, and I was determined to make it work.
Takayuki Yamada (Producer)
Could you tell us about your relationship with producer Takayuki Yamada?
Ando (Japanese name for Ando province)We had a previous office together , but we didn't have a relationship at all at that time. We had a chance to work together once after I left that office. When we were cranking up the film, I said to Takayuki, "Let's work together again on a different film next time. We haven't performed together, but this "Day and Night" is the work we are going to do together. I felt sorry that I couldn't get the groove right the last time, so it's not like I was trying to make amends (laughs). When I got the offer, I was determined to do it.
Is it possible that one of the reasons you accepted the project was because you felt empathy for Takayuki Yamada as an actor?
Ando (Japanese name for Ando province)I still have a very high opinion of him as an actor. I think he is a man who is good at self-expression and producing, no matter how you look at it. However, I have never seen Takayuki in many of his plays. That is, "Close Zero" or something like that. But just recently, I happened to see a drama that was on BS or something, and I thought he had a very good facial expression. Well, I like him a lot (laughs).
What did you do to prepare for the role?
Ando (Japanese name for Ando province)Rather than creating a role, I think I am the type of person who expresses what I feel in a given scene or situation, so I didn't really feel that I created the role by reading the script. I went to Akita, where the filming took place, saw the scenery of Akita, and entered into the situation that was created for me and felt it. Until two weeks before that, I was playing the role of a cancer patient in a film called "Sparkling Glasses," and two weeks before that, I was shooting a completely different film. . So I don't think I was really preparing for the role.
Do you always adapt the role to the occasion rather than preparing for the role in advance?
Ando (Japanese name for Ando province)Yes, that's right. . I was just going to see the scene and feel it. I read the script about 3 days before crank-in, and I was like, "This is what it's all about. I don't read it at all during the costume fitting stage (laughs). In the past, I used to read a lot and pay attention to the director I liked and the role I was playing, but if I felt it didn't fit at that time, I stopped and didn't do anything. Now, I don't read scripts or anything. I just dive in and start thinking from there.
Movies and dramas. Which do you think is a better fit?
Ando (Japanese name for Ando province)If it is between movies and dramas, I think that movies are more suited to me because I met Takeshi Kitano and have been working in movies for 20 years, and I think that my acting is more suited to the direction of movies. However, that does not mean that I reject drama. Dramas have their own style of direction, and I try to adapt my acting to them.
What was the offer when you decided on the film?
Ando (Japanese name for Ando province)In the past, I simply wanted to work with directors and people I liked. But recently, I have been accepting offers and listening to what they have to say, and thinking, "Oh, I want to work for this person. That's how I accept offers now.
What were your thoughts when you finished filming "Day and Night"?
Ando (Japanese name for Ando province)The schedule was quite demanding, and I was shooting four movies in a row at the time, so it was physically demanding. But I wanted to live up to the expectations I had for this film, and the last scene we shot was rather shocking, so I cranked it up with my emotions running high. After the filming was over, I was told, "One last thing! But I was still in the same state of excitement from the shoot, and I ended up making a sobbing speech. I was so happy to be able to respond to Takayuki! I cried like that (laughs). After that, on the bullet train home, I thought to myself, "Why did I let it happen like that? I don't communicate with my family at all when I am on location. When I returned home that day, I found that a location near my house had been chosen for a new film by director Kazuya Shiraishi, starring Naoto Takenaka and Takumi Saito. I thought to myself, "Wow, what's this? What is this? That was one of those days (laughs).
I understand that you are also a photographer.
Ando (Japanese name for Ando province). a little bit, but only a little bit. I like taking pictures, and I've been doing it for the past 20 years, and I've had the opportunity to photograph actresses and co-stars in private in different settings. I've been doing that for a long time, and I really like photography.
What is the difference between photography as a hobby and photography as a career?
Ando (Japanese name for Ando province)There is no difference there, whether it is a hobby or a job. I simply really like photography , and I am attracted to photography itself. I have a lot of friends who are photographers , and we often talk about photography. However, I recently had a job with "GQ" where I had to take pictures of 10 people in 10 seconds, but I had trouble with my equipment. As a result, I was only able to take pictures of six people (laughs). (laughs). I really cried.
What camera do you use?
Ando (Japanese name for Ando province)I used to shoot Nikon X1 and Samurai on film and had them burned at my friend's house, but now I shoot all the time with a cheap digital camera, a Canon 80D.
Do you have a favorite photographer?
Ando (Japanese name for Ando province)Well, when I had just started acting in "Kids Return," I told a photographer I was doing an interview with that I liked photography, and he said, "I'm going to a photography exhibition now, do you want to come? He invited me to come, and when I went to the museum in Shin-Kiba and saw Cindy Sherman and others, her style of acting and photographing herself overlapped a bit with my own still-acting and still-loving photography. So, in the beginning, I was taking pictures by myself all the time. I went around town and took pictures , . Well, the subject is good, so it doesn't matter how you take the picture. It was like that. (laughs). That's how I did it. But when I started photographing actresses, the theme of "death" was a big one for me at the time, so I projected that theme into my photos.
What kind of pictures would you like to take now?
Ando (Japanese name for Ando province)I guess it's women, after all. I want to take pictures of women in a glamorous way, and I have been doing that for a long time. Also, I take pictures when I read the script or when I feel like it, not when I'm preparing for a role in a movie. In "Code Blue," I played the role of a neurosurgeon, and I had to write a consent form to have the brain surgery performed right next to me, so all I could do was look at the brain. . Then, even when I took pictures of flowers, they still looked like brains. Also, when I played a role where I was looking at a woman's genitals all day long, that was all I was looking at, so even if a plastic bottle cap was removed and there was a hole in it, it looked like a genital organ. The camellia flowers I took during a break at that time looked like genitals both as a whole and one by one. I don't know, I always feel blood.
