Actress Mio Imada (27) made her first appearance on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) on December 4th. Imada, who was scouted in her hometown of Fukuoka when she was a second-year high school student, shared an episode from that time.
Imada is the eldest of three siblings. When she was a child, she wanted to be a nursery school teacher. "I remember really liking the teacher at the kindergarten I went to, and wanting to be just like her," she revealed.
When she was scouted, she had no interest in the entertainment industry. "I never thought I would be able to do this kind of work, so I was surprised when I was first approached," she recalls.
Her parents encouraged her to try if she could, prioritizing her studies. She tried acting lessons, walking lessons, and reporting lessons. Her catchphrase during her time in Fukuoka was "The cutest girl in Fukuoka." Imada said with a shy smile, "It may be presumptuous, but that's what I did at first."
When she was deciding on her career path in her third year of high school, her desire to go into showbiz grew stronger and stronger. Her parents were not against it, but they wanted her to go to college to broaden her options. "However, I wanted to do this job alone, so I had a lot of discussions with my parents," she recalls.
With the support of my homeroom teacher, my parents agreed to my plan, but on one condition: "If you're not much different from how you are now by the time you're 22, when everyone else is graduating from college, then we'll think about it."
He moved to Tokyo at the age of 19. At the age of 21, he appeared in the TV drama series "Boys Over Flowers: Next Season" (TBS). "That was a turning point for me in a lot of ways. After that, I didn't talk about it with my parents," he said, smiling. "Because there was a deadline, I was able to work hard and I think it was a good thing."
The words of Nakai Kiichi, who spoke to her when she was 20 years old, helped her. "I was doing a drama, and on the day of the wrap-up, he told me to go for 30 points. I wanted to look good, I wanted to look cool, but that's not easy. I was at a time when I wondered how I could work hard. Hearing those words at such a time made me feel like I was fine the way I was, and it relaxed my shoulders. It made me feel a lot better," she said.
