Shinya Owada's "Tetsuko's Room" August 20th broadcast "No time to grow old"

77-year-old actor Shinya Owada appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) on August 20th. He talked about his hobby of "stuffed toy activities" and games, emphasizing the importance of trying new things.

Looking back on the Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred on March 11, 2011, he says, "It made me think about a lot of things. Up until then I had been working hard in my own way, doing a lot of work, and living a tense life, but maybe this was no longer the time. I realized that now was the time to do what I love and take another look at how I was living my life."

He started making movies he had always wanted to make, directing plays, and going to the zoo he had always wanted to visit. He also started playing games, and says, "There are all kinds of characters that fight alongside you. They're all so cute, I named them after my beloved dogs that I used to have, and I started carrying stuffed toys with me all the time."

He took the stuffed animal to the zoo, but suddenly remembered a scene he saw at Machu Picchu. "At the top of Machu Picchu, some young people were taking pictures with stuffed animals. I always thought it was interesting, so I started taking pictures with them when we went to places like the aquarium," he said.

Many people have resonated with him, and he has been told, "It's amazing that a man of my age could do this." He has also been told that people who are hospitalized have been encouraging him. He used to think that gaming was a waste of time. When Awaji Keiko, who appeared in a play he directed decades ago, played games during breaks in the performance, he thought it was a distraction, but now that he has started playing games himself, he understands why Awaji was playing them.

"I do a lot of different things, but it's a mental thing. If I open my mind and try something new, a new world opens up to me. I enjoy seeing that new world. I don't have time to get old," she says, going to a nearby pool once a week.

He still paints oil paintings. As we get older, the number of hobbies we can do "decreases, so I think if we increase the number of hobbies and take on new challenges, we'll find new joy." By doing so, he said, "you'll be younger at heart, and you'll have something in common to talk about with children and young people. That's a huge benefit."