It was revealed on November 27th that British actor Tommy Bastow will play Heaven, who will become a married couple with the heroine Toki Matsuno (Takaishi) in the NHK morning drama series "Bakebake," starring Akari Takaishi, which will air in the second half of 2025. The role is based on the Meiji era literary figure Lafcadio Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo). Here, we will introduce Bastow's activities so far.
Bastow was born on August 26th, 1991, and is 33 years old and from the UK. In 2007, he formed the rock band "FranKo," and is still active as the lead vocalist. In 2008, he made his first major film appearance in "Georgia's Diary: Everyday Life in Depression," and began his acting career in the UK. Since 2018, he has expanded his activities to the United States, and in the drama "SHOGUN" produced and starring Hiroyuki Sanada, which won a record 18 awards at the 76th Emmy Awards, he played the role of one of the main cast members, Priest Martin Alvid, which attracted a lot of attention.
He has been studying Japanese for about 10 years, and shows off his fluent Japanese in the drama. He said he learned Japanese by himself, and when asked what prompted him to start studying Japanese, he said, "When I was a child, my father loved movies and showed me a lot of movies from all over the world. I don't know why, but I was particularly attracted to Japanese movies. The trigger was movies from Japan's golden age."
He said he particularly likes the movies of director Akira Kurosawa, saying, "Toshiro Mifune is very cool. I started studying Japanese thanks to his acting. I've watched a lot of Japanese movies, but unfortunately, Kurosawa's movies are very difficult to understand if you want to study Japanese," making the reporters laugh.
The audition for the role of Heaven in "Bakebake" attracted a total of 1,767 applicants, including 246 from Japan and 1,521 from overseas (1,352 from the US, 149 from the UK, and 20 from Australia and New Zealand). After document screening, remote video screening, and interviews, the final camera test was conducted in Japan and the final selection was made in October. Meanwhile, auditions for the morning drama "Massan" in the second half of 2014 attracted a total of 521 applicants, including 232 from Japan and 289 from overseas, making the total number of applicants three times that of "Massan".
Bastow came to Japan in October and is currently studying at a Japanese language school. This was the first time that she met the heroine, Takaishi. Takaishi said of her impression of Bastow, "I had heard from the staff that she was the kind of person that would captivate anyone, so I wondered what kind of person she was, and she was really cheerful and kind."
"Bakebake" is the story of a couple who love "ghost stories" together with their foreign husband, and who shed light on the "nameless people" who were forgotten in Meiji Japan as Westernization progressed, and who spoke for them. The script was written by Mitsuhiko Fujiki, who also wrote the NHK "Asagaya Sisters' Relaxed Life as a Couple" and WOWOW's "Shooting Day Off Series."
