Actor Ichirota Miyagawa appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) broadcast on May 13th. He talked about his first appearance in an NHK Taiga drama after 42 years of acting, raising children after his divorce, his first grandchild, and more.
He played Fujiwara Akimitsu in the NHK Taiga drama "Dear Radiance (Hikaru Kimi e)" broadcast in 2024. When he researched this character while playing the role, he found out that he was known in history as a man who couldn't do his job. "Is that why he's known in history?" he thought. His mother, who is 88 years old, was also looking forward to watching "Dear Radiance (Hikaru Kimi e)", and her friends who play golf every day said to her, "I'm watching it," "You're the Minister of the Right now," and "You've been promoted to the Minister of the Left."
She divorced in her 30s. She raised her two daughters alone while they were in high school and college. "I learned firsthand how difficult it is for housewives around the world to raise their children," she says with a sense of reality.
She had promised her daughter not to make the divorce public until she was 20 years old, and "the fact that I couldn't tell anyone meant that no one helped me," she recalled. When she returned home from the supermarket after doing a large amount of shopping by herself, a neighbor said to her, "You have a kind husband," and she responded, "I'm doing my best."
In the summer of last year, her second daughter gave birth to her first grandchild. They live far away from each other, so they rarely get to see each other. While they were away, the baby grew bigger and bigger, and is now one and a half years old. "It's my son-in-law's face," she said, narrowing her eyes, and proclaiming that she will never let her grandchild call her "Grandpa." She said, completely smitten, that she plans to meet him as often as possible and "keep telling him 'Ichikunda zo, Ichikunda zo' (from his name, Ichirota)."
