He and his wife co-star in commercials, and their son is also an actor…Celebrating the Best Actor Award at Cannes! Koji Yakusho is a humble and “fearless” wife-beater.

The 76th Cannes International Film Festival was held in France on January 27 (January 28, Japan time), and Koji Yakusho (67), who starred in “Perfect Days” (directed by Wim Wenders), won the Best Actor Award. This is the first time in 19 years that a Japanese actor has won this award since Yuya Yagira (33) won in 2004. The story depicts the daily life of the main character, Hirayama, who works as a janitor in a public restroom in Shibuya, Tokyo. In an interview with the Japanese media after receiving the award, he said, “I finally caught up with Yagira,

I think I’ve finally caught up with Yagira-kun (laughs). Yagira has become a really great actor. As I say to everyone, I feel once again that I must live up to the honor of this award.

He said. In an interview with NHK, he said, “I think [Wim Wenders] is probably the best actor in the world,

I thought through the filming of the movie that he is a man who understands Japanese people, culture, and customs so well that he probably was Japanese in his previous life.

He was generous with his praise. In 1980, he made his television debut in the NHK morning drama “Nacchan no Shashin Kan” (Nacchan’s Photo Studio). While many actors have been mainly active on TV, he has been an actor for more than 40 years, sticking to films. In Japan, he won all the Best Actor awards for his role in the 1996 film “Shall We Dance? He has reigned as one of Japan’s top actors in both name and reality, winning the Best Actor Award at the Japan Academy Prize for seven consecutive years since that year. But this is the first time he has won the Best Actor award in one of the world’s three major film awards, which is a bit surprising.

After graduating from a prefectural high school in Nagasaki, he moved to Tokyo to work at the Chiyoda Ward Office in Tokyo. A friend took him to see a play, and he was so struck by it that he knocked on the door of Mumeijuku, a school led by Tatsuya Nakadai. His stage name comes from his career at the ward office.

There, he met Saeko Kawazu, four years his senior, who was also a student at Mumeijuku, and they married in 1982, four years after Yakusho entered the school, due to the rule that love was prohibited during the three-year training period of Mumeijuku.

Yakusho had been an obscure actor who could not make a living until then, but one week after his marriage, he was cast as Nobunaga Oda in the NHK historical drama “Tokugawa Ieyasu,” which was to be his breakout role. At the time, Yakusho said, “It was like I got the role as a wedding present,” but his ability and presence were outstanding, and it was only a matter of time before the public noticed. It was probably Mrs. Saeko who first noticed his talent.