How Tadanobu Asano plans to crack Hollywood

Tadanobu Asano is relaxed and composed, sitting over a huge desk at his management company's offices in Harajuku. His hair is neat and trim, his knit jacket and jeans make him the picture of a man calm and content.

He looks anything but the roguish bad boy that has filled the lead roles of so many indie Japanese films. He'll hate me saying it, but he actually looks like a star. 

Asano, 36, is giving his first major English interview since 2002 and is keen to discuss his various activities while here to promote his two latest Japanese films. Once a reluctant star, he has reconsidered his life and is now taking on new challenges -- including breaking into the United States.

He has just shot "Thor" -- a marvel comic adaptation starring Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins, directed by Kenneth Branagh and out in July 2011 -- and will soon be back in the United States filming another blockbuster, the $200 million budget "Battleship" due to release in 2012. 

"Battleship" will star Liam Neeson and will also feature the movie debut of Rihanna, according to the Hollywood Insider, with Asano playing a character named Nagata. "Hancock" director Peter Berg will be at the helm. 

"I feel very differently now than four years ago," he says. "My drive was to go to an unknown world in which I was not sure that I would be able to get through. But now I’ve gotten the confidence that I’ll overcome difficulties and I’m kind of looking forward to whatever life throws up next."

In this sense Asano is bringing his maverick on-screen traits into his life, taking risks that many local actors will not. It is this fear of moving away from the home market that he says is behind the conspicuous lack of Japanese talent in Hollywood at present. "The actors of other Asian regions such as Hong Kong or South Korea are very aggressive and they take an attitude as equals with Americans," he says. "The hungry spirit of Japanese actors can’t be compared with those from other countries." 

Asano in "Wandering Home," which opened the 2010 Tokyo International Film Festival.

A gaijin in his homeland

When Asano was shot for Time magazine's cover in October 2002, he was labeled "Japan's favorite (dysfunctional) son," already a respected actor with heartthrob looks, but who chose awkward roles to avoid the limelight. 

Part of his reasoning was that having grown up with Navajo ancestry and blonde hair in Yokohama, he never really fitted in. But Asano believes the attention he got from an early age only prepared him better for his career.

"I was called “gaijin! gaijin!” by other kids and there was some influence of my American grandfather on that because I stood out whether I liked it or not, with blonde hair. So that became normal for me since I was little," he says. "Since I thought of myself as a person who stood out naturally, I wanted to get into show business."

"Looking back it wasn't a bitter experience, it molded my character. Unpleasant experiences such as being bullied are hard at the time, but aren’t bad at all when you grow up, especially for actors," he says.

Asano became fascinated with all kinds of artistic expression during his teenage years. But he took particular interest -- or an unhealthy obsession -- with rock icon Sid Vicious.

"Wandering Home" is based on the autobiography of the late journalist Yutaka Kamoshida.

Teenage experience

"I met people who really loved punk rock and I took it very seriously. Sid was pursuing something inside of him even though he was young, it was like fate, but I was lucky to have great friends," he says.

"They said 'You are you. If you do the drugs, drinking and self-harm that he did, then you will become only a copy of him and that doesn't honor him.' Without them, I could have had a stupid way of life." 

Asano also discovered he had another talent as a teenager, which amuses him still today.

"When I was a teenager, my friends and I were crammed in a car with our knees against the guys sitting next to us. I tried to call the name of a friend, only in mind, for fun. After I kept calling for a while, he said “What?” “Did you call me?” I said “No, I didn’t”, wondering whether he really caught my voice in mind. And I became interested in those kind of things." 

Asano believes extrasensory perception (ESP) is a skill rather than magic. "I don’t think I have a distinct supernatural power. If I said that kind of thing, I might be thought as an eccentric, but I think ESP is just an ability that is not taught at school. For example, visually impaired people often have a more finely tuned sense of hearing than able-bodied people who usually don’t train and I believe everybody can get that kind of ability if we try, including ESP," he says.

"I don’t do it to people much, just with friends for fun where I imagine a shape and ask my friend to guess it. But I do it to bugs. One time there was a small spider beside me and I wanted to look at it closely. So I asked it, 'I want to to look at you close-up, can you step on my hand?' Then it jumped on my hand! I thought wow! It was staying on my hand not trying to escape, and after I watched him closely I said “Thanks!”, then it jumped out of my hand and went somewhere."

A scene from this year's "Ranbou to Taiki" ("Vengeance Can Wait").

Once on the topic, Asano is at his most animated.

"I won’t be able to stop talking now!" he says. "It happened to my son when I went to a safari park. We went to a  hippopotamus pool but they were far from us. I told my son 'If you call him in your mind earnestly, the hippo will come to us because you’ve got a pure heart -- not like your father.' My son said 'Really?', and he did it with his whole heart. Then the hippo came toward us in a rush and opened his mouth for us. It worked!"

"Or I might be just be a loony actor," he says with a smile.

A new direction

In the last few years Asano has been keeping busy with many activities, from DJing to clothes design, art books and a flurry of new films, including Japanese productions "Ranbou to Taiki" (Vengeance Can Wait) and "Yoi Ga Sametara, Uchi Ni Kaerou" (Wandering Home).

The biggest new step though, is his move to the United States.

"After I filmed “Mongol” (in 2007) and got through a lot of [personal] difficulties, I’ve taken interest in American films, especially since I have some American blood," he says.

Through friends and agents he got an offer to audition for Hogun, one of the Warriors Three from Marvel Comic's "Thor."

"People who’ve been watching my works recently have some kind of fixed image and they tend to think 'Asano will do these kind of roles, or movies,' but I’d been wondering how I could try something totally different." 
 
Asano shows off another of his creative talents.So far filming in Hollywood has proven far less of a challenge than he thought.

"I think there are small differences which comes from the higher budgets, such as the number of crew. And of course there are various differences such as a union for screen actors and detailed regulations, but the fact is that money can actualize things better," he says. 

Asano has filmed in various countries during his career but admits language barriers still occur. "As for acting I feel pressure for not being good at English," he says. "The style of filming is not so different country by country and I’m used to that, but I feel awkward when I don’t understand what’s going on on a set with a language barrier."

Asano also admits to harboring ambitions for even bigger and better things in Hollywood, a territory only a handful of Japanese actors or actresses have cracked to date.

"I’d like to take a long-term view in America. I’m not sure if I could be in the circumstance to play a big role but that's what I'd like to work towards."

Asked why the list of successful Japanese actors in the United States is so short given the size of the Japanese movie industry -- the world's third biggest -- he explains, "I don’t think that it's unique to actors and actresses, but the entertainment world is closed in Japan. It seems like not trying to extend out at all. I found that the kind of attitude of mind of other Asians is very different in comparison." 

For Asano, it's a question of personal desire. "I believe nothing is impossible when you’re really willing to do something," he says. 

Now you can even wear a bit of Asano.

Clothing line

Asano's muse it seems, is always wandering. During our interview in Harajuku it's impossible not to notice the clothes surrounding us. They are part of Asano's own line, Jean Diadem.

"I thought I could make the kind of clothes I want to wear," he says. "Since my mother has owned a used clothes shop and opened a flea market, I’ve always been interested in clothes. So I thought the easiest way to find clothes I like is by making them. I only do design and create the concept though."

He reveals drawings for future designs inspired by Hawaii. "The patterns of the shirts are going to be different from others. I heard that people usually draw pictures on aloha shirts with respect, but I don’t have such a deep feeling for tropical flowers or pineapples," he says.

"The thing is that we are not a slave to fashion or seasonal cycles. We would sell the same clothes as the last season if we like them or we think they are interesting!" 

While acting is his bread and butter, he admits he would never leave it to pursue his other hobbies. "I just want to know how it’s going to be if I only do my favorite things," he says.

"I used to think acting was boring but now I changed my mind."