Actor Koichi Sato appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) broadcast on July 14th. He talked about his memories with his father, actor Rentaro Mikuni, his son Kanichiro, and Yoshinaga Sayuri, with whom he co-starred in a movie.
When he first entered the entertainment industry, he wanted to choose a stage name and asked Mikuni what name he thought would be good. He was told, "If you're going to choose a stage name, you should quit acting," so he stuck with his real name. Mikuni took one character from each of the names of two directors he was close to at the time, and gave it to him. "They say that in his later years, he wasn't on good terms with the two directors, so I think that's a problem," Sato said with a wry smile.
People sometimes wonder why he calls his father "Mikuni-san." "When I started working in the same job and went to the workplace, it became difficult for me to say, 'My father' or 'My dad'. Rather than saying, 'How is your father?' and 'Yes, my father,' I felt I could maintain my identity by saying, 'Mikuni, you seem to be busy,' or I didn't want to call him my father, so it just came naturally," he reveals.
Three generations of his family have become actors. "Because (acting) is not a traditional art form. Ultimately, it is an individual's choice (of profession), and even though there are basics (in acting), the creators are different in each era and the demands change. How to judge and how to see things, I want people to think about these things as objectively as possible. I think that's what (my son) thought after watching me, and I also thought the same way when I watched Mikuni," he said.
In the film, he played the role of a married couple with Yoshinaga. From the time he started acting, Yoshinaga said, "She was a top star. I never imagined that 45 years later, I would be playing a married couple with her." "Anyway, she was a very energetic person. She never looked tired on set, and she never complained. She was really wonderful," he said, looking back on the time. "As a younger person, I couldn't say that I was tired."
