75-year-old actor Yoshie Ichige appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) on October 22nd. She spoke about why she wanted to become an actor, what she pursued during the COVID-19 pandemic, and her childhood.
It's been 55 years since he made his TV drama debut in 1971. When he asked a senior actor who came to teach at the drama club he belonged to how to become an actor, he was told, "Normally you go to a training school or something like that. If possible, it's better to go to a big school, so try Bungakuza. But you won't get in." He says that when he was 18, he entered Bungakuza's research institute "feeling at ease."
"I wanted to change my personality. I was shy and withdrawn, so I wanted to fix that, and as a drastic measure, I thought that becoming an actor might help me," she said. Even when her job required her to appear on TV, she would hide behind the actor playing her husband. Her actor friends would tell her, "You, being on screen is part of your pay, so be on screen," and pull her forward.
She stayed at home for nearly the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. "I guess I have a bit of a geeky disposition, so I found great relief when I read my favorite books, old books, and older books. I went back and read the girls' novels I used to read as a child. I got hooked. It felt like I was lost in a maze of knowledge, and my geekiness reached its peak," she says.
Her father was 46 when she was born, and her two older brothers were nearly 20 years younger than her, so she "grew up almost like an only child." "Playing alone was the norm, I would imagine my friends in my head, make up stories for them, build a house, draw up floor plans, build a vacation home, and have an island. I feel like all of that has led to the person I am today," she said.
