Watanabe at the NYC opening of Memories of Tomorrow
Born
(1959-10-21) October 21, 1959 (age 64)
Hirokami (currently Uonuma), Niigata, Japan
Occupation
Actor
Years active
1979–present
Spouses
Yumiko Watanabe
(m. 1983; div. 2005)
Kaho Minami
(m. 2005; div. 2018)
Children
Dai Watanabe
Anne Watanabe
Ken Watanabe (渡辺 謙, Watanabe Ken, born October 21, 1959) 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.
In 2014, he starred in the reboot Godzilla as Dr. Ishiro Serizawa, a role he reprised in the sequel, Godzilla: King of the Monsters. He lent his voice to the fourth and fifth installments of the Transformers franchise respectively, Transformers: Age of Extinction and Transformers: The Last Knight, as Decepticon-turned-Autobot Drift. In 2022, he starred in the HBO Max crime drama series Tokyo Vice.
He made his Broadway debut in April 2015 in Lincoln Center Theater's revival production of The King and I in the title role. In 2015, Watanabe received his first Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical at the 69th Tony Awards for his role as The King. He is the first Japanese actor to be nominated in this category.[1] Watanabe reprised his role at the London Palladium in June 2018.[2][3]
^"Ken Watanabe Receives 2015 Tony Nomination for "The King and I"". crunchyroll.com. April 29, 2015. Archived from the original on May 1, 2015. Retrieved May 1, 2015.
^Longman, Will (November 17, 2017). "Details confirmed for The King and I at the London Palladium in 2018". LondonTheatre.co.uk. Archived from the original on August 2, 2020. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
^"The King and I". londonboxoffice.co.uk. Archived from the original on November 17, 2017. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
KenWatanabe (渡辺 謙, WatanabeKen, born October 21, 1959) is a Japanese actor. To English-speaking audiences, he is known for playing tragic hero characters...
Anne Watanabe (渡辺 杏, Watanabe An, born 14 April 1986 in Tokyo) is a Japanese fashion model, actress, and singer. She is the daughter of film actor Ken Watanabe...
and Marshall Herskovitz from a story devised by Logan. The film stars KenWatanabe in the title role, with Tom Cruise, who also produced, as a soldier-turned-samurai...
person's idea into a target's subconscious. The ensemble cast includes KenWatanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Elliot Page, Tom Hardy, Cillian...
Sant and written by Chris Sparling. The film stars Matthew McConaughey, KenWatanabe, Naomi Watts, Katie Aselton and Jordan Gavaris. The film is about an...
American war film directed and co-produced by Clint Eastwood, starring KenWatanabe and Kazunari Ninomiya. The film portrays the Battle of Iwo Jima from...
Tokyo Vice police squad to reveal corruption. The series also stars KenWatanabe and is written and executive produced by Tony Award-winning playwright...
Itami, and starring Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto, Kōji Yakusho, and KenWatanabe. The publicity for the film calls it the first "ramen Western", a play...
remade into a 2013 Japanese film, also titled Unforgiven, which stars KenWatanabe and changes the setting to the early Meiji era in Japan. Eastwood has...
Ken Takakura (Japanese: 高倉 健, Hepburn: Takakura Ken), born Goichi Oda (小田 剛一, Oda Gōichi, February 16, 1931 – November 10, 2014), was a Japanese actor...
Liam Hemsworth, David Alan Grier, Aisha Tyler, Cobie Smulders, and KenWatanabe, among others. Formerly an Intellectual Property attorney, prior to co-founding...
married to actor KenWatanabe from 2005 until 2018. Their divorce was announced about a year after a media outlet reported that Watanabe, who later admitted...
Best Actor in a Drama Series. In 2015, McConaughey starred alongside KenWatanabe and Naomi Watts in the Gus Van Sant-directed film The Sea of Trees.A...
directed by Paul Weitz and starring Chris Massoglia, John C. Reilly, KenWatanabe, Salma Hayek, Josh Hutcherson and Willem Dafoe was released on October...
Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, KenWatanabe, and Morgan Freeman in supporting roles. The film reboots the Batman...
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