92-year-old actor Tatsuya Nakadai appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) broadcast on May 22nd. He talked about his memories with big stars and his thoughts on the students at "Mumeijuku," an acting training school that was established 50 years ago.
Rentaro Mikuni was a "wonderful actor." During rehearsals, he asked me, "Nakadai-kun, are you going to perform like that?" "Yes, that's what I think and I'm doing my best," he replied, "If you perform like that, I won't have a way to act," and when I asked him why, he replied, "If I do it more like this, I'll be able to perform the way I had in mind." "As a result, when the work was completed, it turned out to be a very good performance," he recalled.
"I was taught sword fighting by Toshiro Mifune," he said. His favorite actor is Tetsuro Tamba. He described him as "an interesting guy," and after rehearsals, he said "Ah," and made a mistake. When asked, "What happened?" he replied, "I turned over two pages."
He also likes Kiyoshi Atsumi, and although they have never acted together, he says, "When I watch his films on TV, I like him so much that I want to act like him." "I think he acts from a script, but he says his lines as if they were ad-libbed ideas that came to him at the time. He's a great actor. Maybe that's the essence of a comedic actor." As for directors, Akira Kurosawa taught him, "Do you know what's good about you? It's the power of your eyes. Your eyes shine."
He presides over the Mumeijuku acting training school. "Mumeijuku was started by (his wife, actress) Miyazaki Kyoko. I watched it from the sidelines, but before long I got more and more involved, and we ran it together, but then Miyazaki Kyoko passed away (in 1996), and I thought about quitting. However, when I read her will, I saw that she had asked me to continue Mumeijuku, so it's still going on today."
"I'm 92 (years old) and my body and mind are starting to weaken," he said. "I teach hard at Mumeijuku. Those I praise surpass me (in acting), and they overtake me. They're doing something strange (in terms of producing actors who surpass themselves). I'll do my best so that I don't lose to those young people." Mumeijuku is "a very family-like group. When students become our students, they become our sons and daughters, and we have a relationship that's almost like family," he said.
