Biography for
Tadanobu Asano More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

27 November 1973, Yokohama, Japan

Birth Name

Tadanobu Satô

Height

5' 10½" (1.79 m)

Mini Biography

Described by some as a cross between Johnny Depp and Toshirô Mifune, Asano Tadanobu is certainly the hippest, if not the single most important, Japanese film actor working today. His father, an actors' agent, suggested he take on what became his first role, in the TV show "Kimpachi Sensei," at the age of 16. His film debut was in the 1990 Swimming Upstream (Bataashi Kingyo (1990)), though his first major critical success was in Shunji Iwai's Fried Dragon Fish (1993) (TV). His first critical success in the West was in Hirokazu Koreeda's Maborosi (1995), in which he played a man who inexplicably throws himself in front of a train, widowing his wife and orphaning his infant son. His best known works internationally are the samurai films Taboo (1999) and The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (2003). It was on the set of Iwai's _Picnic (1996)_ that he met and fell in love with J-Pop idol Chara. They married soon after learning she was pregnant with their first child, Sumire. While best known for characters who are psychologically offbeat, if not downright psychotic (e.g. Kakihara in Ichi the Killer (Ichi the Killer (2001))), Asano has been described by those who know him as a down-to-earth family man. However, on 25th July 2009, it was confirmed In the Japanese media he had divorced his wife, and has been dating Diana Chiaki. He has directed commercial TV spots for Chara. Hesistant to identify himself as an actor, he most readily describes himself as a vocalist, referring to Mach 1.67, the band he has with director Gakuryu Ishii. He's also an artist, and sometimes works as a model, most notably for the Japanese designers Takeo Kikuchi and Jun Takahashi.

IMDb Mini Biography By: nate@artofeurope.com

Spouse

Chara

(31 March 1995 - 25 July 2009) (divorced) 2 children

Trivia

Singer in Japanese band Mach 1.67.

When he married Chara, they exchanged wedding rings while standing in the middle of an intersection in Shibuya.

His maternal grandfather was of Dutch and Norwegian descent.

Personal Quotes

[on Thor (2011)] I have blood from Dutch and Norwegian. So, I feel like it was necessity that I could join the film. Because I feel "Thor" is the beginning of finding my roots, and I found that I have family in America, I want to take my time and put effort on my future work so that foreign people get to know me better, and I also want to enjoy that process itself!