Mikami Ai is currently appearing in the NHK Taiga drama "Hikaru Kimi e" (General TV, Sunday 8pm and others) as Empress Shoko. She will also be appearing in "My Diary" (ABC TV/TV Asahi, Sunday 10:15pm), which will air about an hour and a half later, in which she plays a Heian aristocrat turned Reiwa era university student on Sunday nights. This year she has been extremely busy, appearing in five drama series, as well as movies and Netflix productions, but we asked the much talked about 24-year-old how she refreshes herself and got a glimpse into the real face of the popular actress.
"My Diary" is an original work by up-and-coming screenwriter Hyodo Ruri, who made her debut in 2020. The story is structured so that the protagonist, Onomura Yuki (Kiyohara Kaya), a first-year working adult, looks back on her university days through small everyday events, depicting a youth ensemble drama of five men and women. The cast includes five young, talented actors, including Kiyohara and Migami, Sano Hayato, Yoshikawa Ai, and Mochizuki Ayumu.
Migami plays Hasegawa Airi, a classmate of the protagonist Yuki. She is one of a trio of close friends from the Faculty of Education, including Shiraishi Mahiru (Yoshikawa), and is known for her straightforward way of speaking, but she is also sensitive and quickly notices small changes in Yuki. She plays a cool, straightforward girl, but when asked what she keeps in mind when acting, she said, "Rather than thinking about my role in particular, the most important thing in this work is the atmosphere that the five of us create. I try not to decide too much on the schedule, but to act according to the situation and the people in each scene."
Migami attended university while working in show business. She said that she could relate to the work due to her own experience of university life.
"I really understand how grown-up Yuki looks back on his college days. After becoming a working adult, I feel like I can't spend time doing trivial things that are not productive. In college, we just talked about silly things, but looking back now, I think that those silly things and the time when I couldn't find meaning were precious. As my friends around me started looking for jobs, I was worried about whether I should continue working as an actor, so I think I understand Airi's feelings of worry about her future!"
Looking back on her own college days, she says, "I had a lot of lifelong encounters with my teachers and friends." "I started this job after I entered college, so I made a lot of friends before I started working," she says. She still knows her college friends well. "I can contact them very easily, and we talk about silly things like we did in school," she says, laughing.
Spending time with such friends is a great way to relax from her busy days. "We go bowling together, or swim at the public pool (laughs)."
Although the public pool is a common place, she said with a cheerful tone, "I don't want to get as excited as I would at an amusement park pool, and it's close and cheap (laughs)." Even now that she has been appearing on TV more, she still travels by train, and has a down-to-earth personality, saying, "All of my friends who I hang out with are office ladies, so I don't really feel like it's because I'm a celebrity."
One of the key characters in the NHK Taiga drama "Hikaru Kimi e," Nakamiya Akiko's excellent performance has also been a hot topic, and she said with a smile that she has noticed the reaction, "I feel it quite a lot. I don't usually do ego-searching, but thankfully I still hear about it." "When I went bowling with a friend the other day, I was registered as 'Akiko' without even realizing it (laughs)! The group next to me saw the score display and recognized me as 'Nakamiya-sama!'" she said with a smile.
No matter how busy she is, she tries to schedule time to spend with her close friends as much as possible. "I feel like if I only focus on work, I lose the breadth of my thinking. I want to be sensitive to a variety of things, and this time is important to me. Although, it could be that I just want to have fun," she said, laughing playfully.
