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Article about casting in Japan
I came across an interesting article in the Fall 2014 issue of Movie Maker magazine called "The Joy of Fly Casting," in which director Dave Boyle talks about his experiences in casting his current film Man from Reno, and the importance of having a casting director. His previous films include White on Rice and Big Dreams Little Tokyo, quirky comedies that both feature Japanese characters. (Boyle is fluent in Japanese himself.) I thought I'd summarize it here since he discusses how casting/auditoning differs in the U.S. and Japan--I always enjoy learning stuff about Japanese show business, which in turn comes in helpful for my Haru fics.
Man from Reno is a joint Japan-US production about a Japanese mystery novelist and an elderly small-town sheriff who team up to solve a murder mystery in San Francisco. He had already cast Ayako Fujitani as the novelist and Pepe Selma as the sheriff, but his producer, Ko Mori, told him that they needed to "land a major movie star from Japan" for the third co-lead (the title character) in order "to get the green light" for financing.
Here's a direct quote from Boyle on "The Importance of a Casting Director":
I had never used a professional casting director before Reno. And boy was I glad to have Satoshi Mashida, especially given some of the special challenges facing our project.
First of all, the system in Japan is different from in the U.S. Auditions in Japan are very rare, even for minor non-leading roles. Almost everything is decided through pre-existing relationships, whether directly through the actor or their management companies.
Secondly, Japanese TV dramas are frequently packaged first, and then written shortly before filming begins. As a result, many actors are booked up for more than a year in advance, often for projects that haven't even been written yet!
Eventually Mashida suggested Kazuki Kitamura to Boyle, who said that he never imagined that a big star like Kitamura would even be a possibility. However, Mori and Mashida "had been hitting the pavement the entire time, circulating the Japanese translation of my script all over Tokyo to every talent manager in the business. On a hunch, they sent the script over to Kazuki's management company. Kazuki had just finished shooting two films in Indonesia and was open to doing more work overseas." To sum up, Kitamura liked the script, and as the role only required a short filming period, was able to fit Boyle's film into a week-long break in his schedule.
***
It's now several months since the magazine article came out, and Man from Reno has recently opened in theaters. I want to see it, although I may have to wait till comes out on dvd, since it doesn't seem to be playing anywhere nearby.
The information about auditions (or lack thereof) in Japan was interesting, and although I wasn't aware that most roles were pre-cast, that makes sense in hindsight. I've seen interviews and attended convention panels where people in the U.S. anime/manga industry talked about the importance of having connections. Basically, the Japanese companies don't want to deal with people they've never heard of before; the U.S. publisher needs someone that the Japanese publisher knows and trusts to vouch for them. I also remember voice actor Ryo Horikawa (his many roles include Vegeta in DragonBall) talking about the voice acting school that he runs, and how in addition to teaching them to act, being connected with the school helps the students to get roles.
(I took notes during Horikawa's panel because the information about the voice acting industry was so interesting but I seem to have misplaced them. I remember thinking that they might come in handy if I ever decide to write another Boku no Koe fic, so if/when I find them, perhaps I'll do a more detailed write-up later. I do recall that he and another voice actor on the panel both said that their families were supportive of their decisions to become voice actors, which I think surprised me and the rest of the audience a little. Acting isn't exactly a stable or secure career, so you would think most parents would object to it, especially considering the conservative nature of Japanese society. But OTOH, one of my friends reasoned, parental objections would make it difficult to pursue an acting career, so perhaps it makes sense that the people who become voice actors have supportive families. OTOH yet again, I don't know whether or not the majority of Japanese voice actors have supportive families--Horikawa and his colleague might be the exception to the rule for all I know. Of course, for a fictional story, it's much more dramatic to have the actor's family be opposed to his or her career, like Iwaki in the manga or my fanon Onozuka. But the idea of an actor having a supportive family makes a nice contrast, so maybe I should write about that one day. But I digress...)
Getting back to the subject of auditions, there is the big audition scene in the Haru manga for the Fuyu no Semi (Winter Cicada) movie, which inspired and influenced my own Audition (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) fic. And of course there is the very unconventional audition that Sawa makes them go through at the very start of the series! However, now that I look back on the series, most of Iwaki and Katou's other roles seem to be negotiated through their talent agencies. It's possible that there are auditions that take place "offscreen," so to speak, but I get the impression that the majority of their roles after Sawa's movie are offered to them outright. If I recall correctly, Katou was in fact originally offered a role in Fuyu no Semi, but turned it down for what he thought at the time was a more prestigious film, then later changed his mind after Iwaki was cast and he read the book that the movie was based on. So the role wouldn't even have gone to auditions if Katou had just accepted it the first time!
Still, the audition scenes were fun to write, and in fic, it can easily be handwaved that a notoriously picky director like Mochimune would insist on open auditions to be sure he is able to cast the perfect actor for the role.
Oh, and Kazuki Kitamura has an indirect connection to my fanon Haru 'verse! He played the main antagonist in the J-drama Yaoh ("Night King"), which was about host clubs! The main character is an up-and-coming idealistic young host who is a rival to Kitamura's character, the more cynical and mercenary Seiya, who is the top host in the club and one of the "Five Kings of Ginza" (i.e., the five top hosts in Ginza). This, of course, was the inspiration for the drama about host clubs that my fanon Yoshizumi worked on, and in which he met Kenzaki while doing research for the show. The supporting role that Yoshizumi played was essentially the Seiya role in Yaoh.
My OC director Kitamura's name in my fics was influenced partly by Yaoh: I chose "Seiya" as his given name because I liked the sound of it, although his personality is nothing like Yaoh's Seiya, and I didn't pick his surname because of the actor Kitamura. While writing Comeback (Part 1, Part 2), I needed a name for the director of Kikuchi's movie, and while browsing the Japanese language novels at the library for ideas, came across an author named Kitakata, and for some reason that name caught my attention, and again, I liked the sound of it. But I didn't want to just copy the name exactly, so I kept the "Kita" part and changed the name to "Kitamura"--purely at random because it was a fairly common Japanese surname. Later, when I needed to give Kitamura a first name, I again randomly chose "Seiya," without thinking about the fact that the actor playing Seiya was also named "Kitamura"!
On another side note, although Kazuki Kitamura seems to be well known for starring in bloody action movies, I'm more familiar with him playing the comedic (supporting) roles of a handsome but vain detective in both the Galileo and Ataru TV dramas. (Different characters, I should clarify, although they're quite similar in personality.) He has also played Uesugi Kagekatsu (nephew and successor to Uesugi Kenshin) in the historical drama Tenchijin; coincidentally, I had my fanon Kikuchi play Kenshin in one of his pre-scandal movies. And of course as mentioned above, Kitamura also played the top host Seiya in Yaoh.
Man from Reno is a joint Japan-US production about a Japanese mystery novelist and an elderly small-town sheriff who team up to solve a murder mystery in San Francisco. He had already cast Ayako Fujitani as the novelist and Pepe Selma as the sheriff, but his producer, Ko Mori, told him that they needed to "land a major movie star from Japan" for the third co-lead (the title character) in order "to get the green light" for financing.
Here's a direct quote from Boyle on "The Importance of a Casting Director":
I had never used a professional casting director before Reno. And boy was I glad to have Satoshi Mashida, especially given some of the special challenges facing our project.
First of all, the system in Japan is different from in the U.S. Auditions in Japan are very rare, even for minor non-leading roles. Almost everything is decided through pre-existing relationships, whether directly through the actor or their management companies.
Secondly, Japanese TV dramas are frequently packaged first, and then written shortly before filming begins. As a result, many actors are booked up for more than a year in advance, often for projects that haven't even been written yet!
Eventually Mashida suggested Kazuki Kitamura to Boyle, who said that he never imagined that a big star like Kitamura would even be a possibility. However, Mori and Mashida "had been hitting the pavement the entire time, circulating the Japanese translation of my script all over Tokyo to every talent manager in the business. On a hunch, they sent the script over to Kazuki's management company. Kazuki had just finished shooting two films in Indonesia and was open to doing more work overseas." To sum up, Kitamura liked the script, and as the role only required a short filming period, was able to fit Boyle's film into a week-long break in his schedule.
***
It's now several months since the magazine article came out, and Man from Reno has recently opened in theaters. I want to see it, although I may have to wait till comes out on dvd, since it doesn't seem to be playing anywhere nearby.
The information about auditions (or lack thereof) in Japan was interesting, and although I wasn't aware that most roles were pre-cast, that makes sense in hindsight. I've seen interviews and attended convention panels where people in the U.S. anime/manga industry talked about the importance of having connections. Basically, the Japanese companies don't want to deal with people they've never heard of before; the U.S. publisher needs someone that the Japanese publisher knows and trusts to vouch for them. I also remember voice actor Ryo Horikawa (his many roles include Vegeta in DragonBall) talking about the voice acting school that he runs, and how in addition to teaching them to act, being connected with the school helps the students to get roles.
(I took notes during Horikawa's panel because the information about the voice acting industry was so interesting but I seem to have misplaced them. I remember thinking that they might come in handy if I ever decide to write another Boku no Koe fic, so if/when I find them, perhaps I'll do a more detailed write-up later. I do recall that he and another voice actor on the panel both said that their families were supportive of their decisions to become voice actors, which I think surprised me and the rest of the audience a little. Acting isn't exactly a stable or secure career, so you would think most parents would object to it, especially considering the conservative nature of Japanese society. But OTOH, one of my friends reasoned, parental objections would make it difficult to pursue an acting career, so perhaps it makes sense that the people who become voice actors have supportive families. OTOH yet again, I don't know whether or not the majority of Japanese voice actors have supportive families--Horikawa and his colleague might be the exception to the rule for all I know. Of course, for a fictional story, it's much more dramatic to have the actor's family be opposed to his or her career, like Iwaki in the manga or my fanon Onozuka. But the idea of an actor having a supportive family makes a nice contrast, so maybe I should write about that one day. But I digress...)
Getting back to the subject of auditions, there is the big audition scene in the Haru manga for the Fuyu no Semi (Winter Cicada) movie, which inspired and influenced my own Audition (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) fic. And of course there is the very unconventional audition that Sawa makes them go through at the very start of the series! However, now that I look back on the series, most of Iwaki and Katou's other roles seem to be negotiated through their talent agencies. It's possible that there are auditions that take place "offscreen," so to speak, but I get the impression that the majority of their roles after Sawa's movie are offered to them outright. If I recall correctly, Katou was in fact originally offered a role in Fuyu no Semi, but turned it down for what he thought at the time was a more prestigious film, then later changed his mind after Iwaki was cast and he read the book that the movie was based on. So the role wouldn't even have gone to auditions if Katou had just accepted it the first time!
Still, the audition scenes were fun to write, and in fic, it can easily be handwaved that a notoriously picky director like Mochimune would insist on open auditions to be sure he is able to cast the perfect actor for the role.
Oh, and Kazuki Kitamura has an indirect connection to my fanon Haru 'verse! He played the main antagonist in the J-drama Yaoh ("Night King"), which was about host clubs! The main character is an up-and-coming idealistic young host who is a rival to Kitamura's character, the more cynical and mercenary Seiya, who is the top host in the club and one of the "Five Kings of Ginza" (i.e., the five top hosts in Ginza). This, of course, was the inspiration for the drama about host clubs that my fanon Yoshizumi worked on, and in which he met Kenzaki while doing research for the show. The supporting role that Yoshizumi played was essentially the Seiya role in Yaoh.
My OC director Kitamura's name in my fics was influenced partly by Yaoh: I chose "Seiya" as his given name because I liked the sound of it, although his personality is nothing like Yaoh's Seiya, and I didn't pick his surname because of the actor Kitamura. While writing Comeback (Part 1, Part 2), I needed a name for the director of Kikuchi's movie, and while browsing the Japanese language novels at the library for ideas, came across an author named Kitakata, and for some reason that name caught my attention, and again, I liked the sound of it. But I didn't want to just copy the name exactly, so I kept the "Kita" part and changed the name to "Kitamura"--purely at random because it was a fairly common Japanese surname. Later, when I needed to give Kitamura a first name, I again randomly chose "Seiya," without thinking about the fact that the actor playing Seiya was also named "Kitamura"!
On another side note, although Kazuki Kitamura seems to be well known for starring in bloody action movies, I'm more familiar with him playing the comedic (supporting) roles of a handsome but vain detective in both the Galileo and Ataru TV dramas. (Different characters, I should clarify, although they're quite similar in personality.) He has also played Uesugi Kagekatsu (nephew and successor to Uesugi Kenshin) in the historical drama Tenchijin; coincidentally, I had my fanon Kikuchi play Kenshin in one of his pre-scandal movies. And of course as mentioned above, Kitamura also played the top host Seiya in Yaoh.