By Ada Tseng

Inspired by Hiroshi Ogiwara's novel about a man diagnosed with Alzheimer's, Academy Award-nominated actor Ken Watanabe ventures into his first executive-producing effort with the film Memories of Tomorrow (Ashita no kioku).

Interview with Ken Watanabe
May 23, 2007
Interviewed by Ada Tseng
Camera and video edit by Oliver Chien

When we think about Ken Watanabe, Oscar-nominated thespian, the Japanese symbol of rugged machismo, we often think of this. And this. And, of course, most famously, this.

That said, channeling the highly intuitive journalist that I sometimes pretend to be, there was some suspicion that Ken Watanabe, the actor, was not actually a samurai, a chairman, or a general in real life. (Nor was he probably, as Time Magazine curiously called him, a "Protector of Geishas").

However, I was still expecting something like this. And maybe this.

In person, at the Memories of Tomorrow press junket in West Hollywood, Mr. Watanabe -- with his warm, charismatic smile and his carefree, almost jolly, bursts of laughter -- actually seems more represented by this or this. But definitely, definitely still this.

So when is Ken Watanabe going to break out of the intense, serious, regal characters he's known for in the US, and do a fun comedy?

"Comedy is more difficult," says Watanabe. "It's about how much you understand the culture and language and habits. But yes, I would love to try."

Unfortunately for me and my own imagination, the Ken Watanabe-Jim Carrey buddy flick, combining crazy fish-out-of-water antics and playful, physical humor with mind-blowing musical numbers, will have to wait. His latest film Memories of Tomorrow, although it does take him out of his period costumes and allow him to play a contemporary Japanese character, is an intense, socially-relevant melodrama that tackles the issue of Alzheimer's disease.

Watanabe plays Saeki, a sales manager of an advertisement agency, who has just turned 50 and is at the top of his game. This confident and proud man is forced to confront a problem when he suddenly starts becoming forgetful and unable to keep up with his tasks. His doctor diagnoses him with "Early Alzheimer's disease," and he and his wife Emiko (played by Kanako Higuchi) have to deal with the inevitable, heartbreaking reality that he will gradually lose his memory entirely.

Memories of Tomorrow is Watanabe's first producing endeavor. He first came across Hiroshi Ogiwara's book of the same name a couple of years ago while he was shooting Rob Marshall's Memoirs of a Geisha. As soon as he finished reading it, he felt compelled to write a letter to the author in the middle of the night. Soon afterwards, he started to negotiate with the studio and chose Yukihiko Tsuisumi to direct.

"After I read the book, some kind of warm feeling remained in my heart," says Watanabe. "As an actor and filmmaker, I wanted to convey the same feeling to the audience."

Knowing that he would totally say that he felt a "warm feeling" in his heart (having previously read it here, here, and here) but inexplicably not caring that he was feeding me prepped, packaged answers (Inserting admittedly frivolous explanation here.), I raised the logical follow-up question: in a film that tackles such a serious, dark, and difficult subject matter, what did he find uplifting about it?

"In this movie, there's a final moment, where the wife has a small smile," he explains. "It's kind of a small hope that they will meet again and fall in love again. Of course, this is not a happy film, but still -- life is difficult, but it's not so bad. He has a wife; he has a family, a new grandson and granddaughter, and friends and many things."

Having experienced his own bout with leukemia, twice about twenty years ago, Watanabe had a strong emotional connection with his character.

"I couldn't realize it before shooting," he recalls, "but when the doctor says 'You have Alzheimer's,' a small box of painful memories was opened in my heart and in my brain. I couldn't stop it, when acting. I realized finally this movie gave me the opportunity to express the emotion that I have hidden, the struggles [I had] with illness, with leukemia."

This film allowed Watanabe to tackle a different type of film than he was used to and to use a different kind of acting style: "It was a very interesting thing as an actor. Acting is memory. Dialogue and moving and feelings: everything. But it's my style [that] I have to throw away just before shooting in front of our cameras. Because my character doesn't know; he doesn't understand his future. So I need one more process -- I have to memorize the loss of memory. Does that make sense?

"Sometimes I would get confused," he laughs. "I'd forget if it's real or not. So I always told the crew that if I lost my line or my movement, it was just part of my role. Doesn't matter!"

The film has garnered positive responses from Alzheimer's associations for its authentic portrayal of the relationships between the Alzheimer's patients and their spouses who must choose whether to stand by their partner's side during these complications and hardships. In the end, Memories of Tomorrow is very much a love story.

"For audiences that are the same generation as [the character], 48 to 50, they saw it with their wives, and after seeing the movie, [they said] they couldn't turn around and look at the wife's face. 'Would you help me, would you support me?' 'No?!'" jokes Watanabe.

"But a younger generation girl, after seeing the movie, said she wanted to get married. [It made her feel that] marriage is a wonderful thing."

Ken Watanabe picked up the Best Actor award at the 2007 Japanese Academy Awards for this role. Memories of Tomorrow also received Best Film, Best Actress (Kanako Higuchi), Best Musical Score (Michiru Oshima), and Best Screenplay (Uiko Miura, Hakaru Sunamoto) nominations.

The film opens June 8th in Los Angeles and July 13th in San Francisco.

To go to the official site, click here.

Published: Friday, June 8, 2007