Eiko Koike is like a mother in Tokyo”… “Eiko Koike’s unexpected true face” as told by Moka Ishikawa, a junior co-star of “The House without a Kotatsu”.

The drama “A House Without a Kotatsu” (NTV, Wed. 22:00), starring Eiko Koike, has been well received.

The first broadcast on October 18 got off to a good start with a 7.3% viewer rating, and the drama has also received a positive response on Tver, with over 1 million views in 3 days. The drama is a home comedy in which Koike, who plays the main character of a skilled wedding planner, is pushed around by three no-good men: her manga artist husband (Hidetaka Yoshioka), who has been out of work for over 10 years; her son (Ryuto Sakuma), who kicked her university recommendation and is now lost in his career path; and her father (Kaoru Kobayashi), who is divorced at a mature age and lost his savings to an investment fraud. (Kaoru Kobayashi), who has lost his savings to an investment scam.

Moka Ishikawa (22), who plays the role of Rina Suto, an assistant at a wedding hall where Koike is the president, is also Koike’s junior at her office in real life. Ishikawa entered the entertainment industry in 2005 when she won the modeling category in the “All Japan National Beauty Contest. She has appeared in such dramas as “Kamakuradono no 13-nin” and Fuji’s Geki 9 “Kiketsu no Kanten,” but she is a rookie actress who only began her acting career in earnest after moving to her current agency. We interviewed Koike, who unexpectedly plays the lead in her first drama series on a commercial GP band, about how she acts as the chairwoman on set and about the true face of Koike, with whom Ishikawa is usually in contact.

I have the impression that Koike is always in everyone’s circle. When the camera is being set up for shooting, we all stay in a waiting room. It is also a time to check the lines at the end, so I tend to think too much about what I should do for the next scene by myself.

But if everyone is quiet, Koike-san will ask someone to talk and we start chatting. Talking with everyone in this way, before I know it, my nerves are relaxed and I can go into the shoot feeling relaxed. Thanks to that, I think the shooting was a lot of fun.

Ishikawa’s role requires her to be in many office scenes. She says that the natural atmosphere of a small company office is created by the fact that she usually engages in conversation with the other actors. I wonder if Koike is aware of this and actively talks to the other actors.

Koike said, “I think it’s hard to create a natural atmosphere if the actors just memorize lines on their own and match them on the set. I think it’s important to be friendly when the camera is not rolling in order to create a relationship between colleagues and family members.

There were times during the performance when lines were being spoken ad-libbed by the actors without being cut, and I think this is because we talk a lot on a regular basis. I am sure that Mr. Koike values that kind of relationship, which is why he calls out to us.