Rise to Fame
The NHK taiga drama that made him famous in Japan pulled a 47.8% peak rating in 1987, a number no taiga has beaten since. A leukemia diagnosis two years later nearly ended everything. He kept taking roles while bald from chemo, came back, and by the time The Last Samurai hit in 2003, had spent two decades earning the role. Hollywood thought it was discovering him. Japanese audiences knew better. He became the first Japanese actor in 37 years to earn an Oscar nomination, playing Katsumoto with quiet authority that made Tom Cruise look like the supporting role.
In the Spotlight
Two decades after The Last Samurai, he anchors Tokyo Vice as a detective who outshines his American co-star while also running interference on the show's cultural accuracy as executive producer. Kokuho in 2025 put him at the center of Japan's biggest recent theatrical moment, a kabuki drama that pulled over $117 million and earned the country's Oscar submission. He's had a Broadway Tony nomination and a leukemia relapse he kept mostly private. The work rate suggests none of it touched him.
Side Notes
Originally planning to play trumpet, he couldn't afford the conservatory and ended up in a Tokyo theatre troupe instead. That detour became over two decades of stage work before Hollywood called. He reportedly kept his 1989 leukemia diagnosis private because he didn't want audiences reading weakness into the stoic roles he played. He contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion during treatment, then got stomach cancer in 2016. He has said the illnesses made him better at the work. That's either wisdom or the best spin on a brutal two decades.