Ken Watanabe Bio | Wiki
Ken Watanabe is a Japanese actor. He is known for playing tragic hero characters, such as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi in Letters from Iwo Jima and Lord Katsumoto Moritsugu in The Last Samurai.
Among other awards, Ken has won the Japan Academy Film Prize for Best Actor twice, in 2007 for Memories of Tomorrow and in 2010 for Shizumanu Taiyō. He is also known for his roles in Christopher Nolan’s films Batman Begins and Inception, as well as Memoirs of a Geisha, and Pokémon Detective Pikachu.
Ken Watanabe Age
Ken was born on October 21, 1959, in Hirokami, Niigata. He is 63 years old.
Ken Watanabe Height
He is a man of tall stature and stands at a height of 6 ft (Approx. 1.84 m).
Ken Watanabe Family
He was born in the mountain village of Koide in Niigata Prefecture, Japan, to his mother Ryoichi Watanabe, and his father. Ken’s mother was a school teacher and his father taught calligraphy. Due to a number of relocations for his parents’ work, he spent his childhood in the villages of Irihirose and Sumon. He has a sibling named Jun.
Ken Watanabe Wife
In 1983, Ken married his first wife, Yumiko. In September 2005, following two years of arbitration, he and Yumiko were divorced. The couple had two children, a son, Dai, who is an actor, and his daughter Anne, who is an actress and fashion model.
Ken met his second wife, Kaho Minami when they were both acting in a suspense drama for TV Tokyo. They married on 3 December 2005. The marriage was announced by their agencies on 7 December. On May 17, 2018, Kaho Minami’s agency announced that Minami and Ken had divorced after he had admitted to having an extramarital affair.
Ken Watanabe Daughter | Son
Ken’s son Dai is an actor. In August 2008, Dai had his first child, a son, making Ken a grandfather at the age of 48. A daughter was born to Dai in March 2010. In May 2016, Ken’s daughter from his first marriage, Anne, gave birth to twin girls. In November 2017 she gave birth to a son, giving Ken five grandchildren altogether
Ken Watanabe Education
He attended Niigata Prefectural Koide High School, where he was a member of the concert band club, playing trumpet, which he had played since childhood. After graduating from high school, in 1978 Ken aimed to enter Musashino Academia Musicae, a conservatory in Tokyo.
However, he had never received a formal musical education, and because his father became seriously ill when he was in junior high school and was unable to work, which meant that his family could no longer afford to pay for his music lessons.
Ken Watanabe Health
In 1989 Ken was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Cancer returned in 1994, but he later recovered. In 2006 he revealed in his autobiography Dare? – Who Am I? that it was discovered that he had contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion he received while undergoing treatment for his leukemia. Later, Ken said he was in good condition but was still undergoing treatment.
In 2016, while on a break from performing in a Broadway production of The King and I, Ken was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Due to the early diagnosis, surgery was successfully able to remove the cancer
Ken Watanabe Godzilla
In 2014, he starred in the reboot Godzilla as Dr. Ishiro Serizawa. In 2019, Ken starred in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Godzilla is a 2014 American monster film directed by Gareth Edwards. It is a reboot of Toho’s Godzilla franchise, the 30th film in the Godzilla franchise, the first film in Legendary Pictures’ MonsterVerse, and the second Godzilla film to be completely produced by a Hollywood studio.
Ken Watanabe Inception
In 2010, Ken co-starred in Inception, where he stars as Saito, a mark-turned-benefactor businessman of the film’s heist team. Inception is a 2010 science fiction action film written and directed by Christopher Nolan.
He also produced the film with Emma Thomas, his wife. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a professional thief who steals information by infiltrating the subconscious of his targets. He is offered a chance to have his criminal history erased as payment for the implantation of another person’s idea into a target’s subconscious.
Ken Watanabe The Last Samurai
Ken was introduced to most Western audiences in the 2003 American film The Last Samurai, set in 19th Century Japan. His performance as Lord Katsumoto earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The Last Samurai is a 2003 epic period action drama film directed and co-produced by Edward Zwick.
He also co-wrote the screenplay with John Logan and Marshall Herskovitz from a story devised by Logan. The film stars Ken in the title role, with Tom Cruise, who also co-produced, as a soldier-turned-samurai who befriends him
Ken Watanabe Letters From Iwo Jima
In 2006, Ken starred as Tadamichi Kuribayashi in Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima, a Japanese-language American war film directed and co-produced by Clint Eastwood. The film portrays the Battle of Iwo Jima from the perspective of the Japanese soldiers and is a companion piece to Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers, which depicts the same battle from the American viewpoint; the two films were shot back to back.
Ken Watanabe Net Worth
He earns his wealth from his career, therefore, he has amassed a fortune over the years. Ken’s estimated net worth is $40 million.
How Old Is Ken Watanabe
Ken was born on October 21, 1959, in Hirokami, Niigata. He is 63 years old.