Ken Watanabe

Kensuke

Japanese star of stage, film, and television, Ken Watanabe is well known for his heroic roles in feature films Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) and The Last Samurai (2003), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Among other awards, he has won the Japan Academy 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 director Christopher Nolan's Hollywood blockbusters Batman Begins (2005) and Inception (2010) as well as appearances in Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), Godzilla (2014) and Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019).

On stage Watanabe appeared in the title role of The King and I on both Broadway and London’s West End, the former earning him a Tony award nomination for Best Leading Actor in a Musical, the first Japanese actor to be nominated in the category. Watanabe can next be seen in the feature film The Creator and Max’s Tokyo Vice season 2.