If any of you reading ever plan on being an actor, and the thought comes to you, “Hey… I could be an actor in Japan! They always want Western actors!”, let me tell you the only problem with it.
American acting is often, in Japanese eyes, laid back. Read: Boring.
Americans tend to not really DO anything with their faces. So, Japanese directors tell Americans, “Act more!” Americans, typically, when told they’re under-acting, tend to freeze up and act even less.
Try this – watch a Japanese movie in Japanese. Watch the actor’s faces. “You’ve got to be kidding me” is accompanied by eyes opening wide, and an upward motion of the head. There’s a lot more physical movement.
“You ran away and I didn’t know where you were!” is accompanied vocally by the last words in a long, downward slide. The motion of the face accompanies the musical note… a downward tilt of the head. Watch the american kids in “Gamera versus Jiger” – the little girl has this DOWN.
“So desu”, when intended as a “Yes” answer, often accompanies a head movement.
Now compare this to Russ Tamblin’s wooden (by comparison) performance in “War of the Gargantuas”. No kidding, his Japanese co-stars toned down their own performance slightly in order to not make him look bad to Japanese audiences. While Mr. Tamblin was doing a performance that Hollywood would consider A grade acting, it was dull by comparison to a Japanese audience.
Who really got this? “Godzilla verses Monster Zero” featured an American actor (Nick Adams) who had mastered the art of Japanese acting. His performance seemed colorful and a little overblown to an American – to the Japanese audience at the time it was great!
So… if you plan on being in a third series of Godzilla movies at Toho… REALLY PAY ATTENTION to how actors in Japanese movies (past and present) have a lot more body motion and facial expressions than Americans, because there’s been some changes since the 1950’s and 60’s in Japanese acting.
Good training would be to live in Rhode island for six months. Observe how Rhode Islanders interact with one another. Six months after that in Japan… You’re all set!
Go film movies.
