Full Text] Suzuki Honami grins and says that she enjoys playing villains… “Every time I play a role, I think of myself as a newcomer to the stage.

A wide range of challenges

Please!”

His supple voice echoes. In contrast to her cool image, actor Honami Suzuki, 59, appeared at the interview location with light steps.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of her career as an entertainer. While boasting a career that makes her a veteran actress, she has been expanding the range of her activities and roles in recent years.

In the drama “Private Banker” (TV Asahi), in which he appeared last year, he played a naive dumpling shop owner who falls victim to an investment scam, and in “Hitoshi no Hitomi” (Fuji TV), he played an indecisive personnel manager. In “Scandal Eve,” an ABEMA original drama, he gives a terrifying performance as the president of a major entertainment company who tries everything to destroy the small entertainment agency of the main character, played by Kou Shibasaki (44).

He also appeared in the drama “Confrontation” (NHK BS), which will start airing on April 5. He has recently been working on stage productions as well as video productions.

I’ve been watching more and more stage productions for the past 10 years, and I’ve always wanted to try my hand at it,” he said. When I told people that I wanted to perform on stage, they would say, ‘I thought you didn’t like it. I never said I didn’t like it, I just didn’t have many opportunities.

I thought that things in the industry were driven by image, so I thought, ‘Why don’t I just say, ‘That’s not true,’ and destroy that image,’ so I’ve been actively speaking out lately.

He continues to express his passion for the stage, and on April 3, he opened the season of “Just Sweat in My Eyes,” a play in which he plays the lead role. Starting with the Tokyo performance, the show toured five locations throughout Japan, including Hiroshima, Osaka, Toyama, and Yamagata. In the hugely entertaining “funeral comedy,” Suzuki plays the role of a family mother who has become a ghost.

Suzuki will play the role of a ghost mother of a family in this “funeral comedy.-This is my second play with Tomisaka Tomo (40), who wrote and directed the play. When we finished the previous production, we talked about how we would like to do it again together, and that has come to fruition in this play.

Funerals are something that everyone experiences, and I think it is a subject that can be used for many different things. There is also a famous movie by Juzo Itami (64 years old) called “Funeral”. I trust that what Mr. Tomisaka writes will definitely be interesting.

Recently, Suzuki has been taking on a variety of roles, and I get the impression that he is moving more and more freely. When I asked him about this, he replied with some surprising words.

I like the word “free” very much. I want to be free. I am very happy that they wanted me to play the villain in “Scandal Eve. I have played various roles one at a time, and I am glad that there are people who find it interesting. I always try to do my best to respond to such approaches.

She says she has loved TV dramas since she was a child.

Heroines of the times

I used to watch NHK’s morning dramas and TBS’s daytime dramas, “Paula TV Novels,” under the influence of my mother. I loved Kanako Higuchi (67), who was in the Paula TV novel (“Koorogibashi” broadcast in 1978), because she was so wonderful.

When she was a junior in high school, she applied for the “Horipro Talent Scout Caravan” and won the judges’ special award out of 120,000 applicants. However, she recalls that she was not prepared for the challenge of “definitely going into show business.

In my high school days, audition magazines were circulating and were very popular. So I took it rather easy. I never expected to pass the audition and be able to continue working for a long time. I also had to take the college entrance exam, so it wasn’t like I was going to go to …… with a strong will.”

However, when he received the good news that he had passed the audition, he decided to enter the entertainment industry at the same time he entered university. At first, he managed to combine his studies with his acting career, but as the number of films he appeared in increased, he became so busy that he had no choice but to drop out of school.

In 1991, at the age of 24, he starred in “Tokyo Love Story,” a Fuji Geki 9 series that became a huge hit, garnering viewer ratings of over 32% and becoming a social phenomenon. The following year, she starred in “In the Name of Love,” and in 1994 in “The End of the World,” a succession of Fuji TV dramas in which she played the lead roles.

In those days, many of the cast and crew members were young and there were no barriers between them, so it was like a university club. Unlike today, there were almost no studio shoots, so we went on location to many places.

There was a sense of momentum of the times, “Let’s try something like this,” “Isn’t it okay if we do it?” There was also the momentum of the times. We would shoot until dawn and meet up at 8:00 the next morning with hardly any sleep. We were young then, and we laugh about how we couldn’t do that now.

After that, his life centered on marriage and child rearing, and he had a 10-year gap between acting and filming. He looks back on his life as a time when he had more experience outside of work, which gave him more time to enjoy life. At an event last November, he shared a surprising episode in which he was picked up by a girl in Nishi-Azabu.

I was walking alone after dinner with a friend when a man in his 30s or 40s asked me, “Would you like to go out for a drink? He was a man from the countryside, and he was talking about his job and his life. He was from the countryside, and I thought it would be interesting to hear about his work and life.

I really wanted to go, but I declined, saying, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have time. I had a job that required me to write a manuscript at home. If I didn’t have to do that, I thought it would be okay to have at least one beer.

A book that left an impression on me recently

In addition, this New Year’s Day, I went to watch the Hakone Ekiden relay race live, an annual event since my childhood. I also found a new way to enjoy the race.

A family watching from next door was calling out the names of the athletes as they ran past. They were very excited to see the new event. When I call out their first names, they turn around and say, ‘What? They would turn around and say, “What? He told me. I got excited with him, and I found myself yelling out to the players, “HIROSHEE! and I found myself yelling it out loud (laughs).

Suzuki, who has an endless curiosity about people, continued, leaning forward while looking straight at the reporter.

I was always shy and didn’t like to talk to people. However, I felt that if I did that at work, it would take me a long time to get used to people, and I would feel confined. Instead, I thought it would be better to talk to a variety of people.

For example, I was asked, “Why do you work as a writer? or, “How did you get into publishing, and what’s interesting about it?” What’s interesting about you? I think that’s where the drama comes from.

His inquisitiveness is also evident when he is on the move.

Recently, everyone is looking at their phones on the train, so when I see someone reading a book, it makes my heart skip a beat,” he says. The other day, a high school boy was reading Osamu Dazai’s “Ningen Shikkaku. Oh, I love it. He said, “Good luck with that (laughs). I thought it was wonderful.”

She loves to read, and she has appeared on the book review talk show “Have You Read That Book? (BS TV Tokyo), in which authors and editors are invited as guests.

She says, “I probably read more than 100 books a year, partly because I do homework for the show. I read before bed and in the bath. The easiest time to read is when I am traveling, so I would like to go far away by bullet train or airplane if possible!　I am constantly thinking about it.”

She cited “YABUNONAKA-Yabunonaka” (Hitomi Kanehara, Bungei Shunju) as a book that left a lasting impression on her recently. Like “Scandal Eve,” in which he appeared, this novel deals with sexual assault.

The novel is not so much about sexual assault as it is about how people from different backgrounds perceive the issue,” he said. Like “Scandal Eve,” I thought it was important to show not only what actually happened, but also how people around them perceived it, how they distorted it, and what effect it would have when it was reported on ……. Mr. Kanehara asked what we can do to help the people around us.

I was impressed by Ms. Kanehara’s ability to clearly verbalize feelings that are difficult for us to explain, such as “I kind of feel this way. By verbalizing, we can convey our feelings to others and reconsider them ourselves. I think it is dangerous that nowadays everything is shortened and put away with easy words on social networking sites, and people just go along with it.

You have been in the entertainment industry for 40 years. How does he envision his next goal?

First of all, I don’t feel like it’s my 40th anniversary. I took a 10-year break in the middle of my career. In fact, I feel as if I am the newest person in the company when it comes to my work. I don’t think there is much that I can come up with on my own, and there are many people who know newer things and think of interesting things. I try to improve my physical strength and imagination as much as possible so that I can be approached by such people.

This unexpected declaration of a newcomer came out of the mouth of a veteran actor. However, his presence is only growing in maturity.

Extreme Situation Comedy (kcal)
Just Sweat in My Eyes

Written and directed by Tomosaka Tomo (Agaricus Entertainment)
Cast: Honami Suzuki, Rika Adachi, Yuki Ogoshi, Hajime Nishino (Korokoro Chiki Chiki Peppers), Tomu Lanju, Yoji Tanaka, etc.
Tokyo / April 3 (Fri.) to 19 (Sun.), 2026 at IMM THEATER
Hiroshima / April 22 (Wed.) & 23 (Thu.), 2026 Ueno Gakuen (Hiroshima Prefectural Bunka Geijutsu Hall)
Osaka / May 2 (Sat) & 3 (Sun), 2026 Umeda Arts Theater Theater Drama City
Toyama / May 16 (Sat) & 17 (Sun), 2026 Tonami City Cultural Hall, Main Hall
Yamagata / May 23 (Sat) & 24 (Sun), 2026 Yamagin Kenmin Hall
Official website/http://www.asegameni.jp/

From “FRIDAY” April 10, 2026 issue