Kana Kurashina’s “Stoic Private” Appearance Reveals A Sense of Awakening

It was still chilly in mid-April. At dusk on a cloudy evening, when it looked as if it might rain at any moment, a woman was walking alone along a shopping street with a plastic umbrella. She was actress Kana Kurashina (34).

After walking for about 20 minutes, she arrived at a theater in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo.

The lobby was “packed” because the play “No longer Shizuka,” starring Yumi Adachi (40) and Hana Kuroki (32), was about to be performed. Kurashina, who was outside the theater, waited for a while and entered the theater when there were fewer people in the lobby.

Kurashina-san is known for spending every moment of the day thinking about the play, whether it is a TV drama or a stage play, and she spends a lot of time preparing for the role. Even on her off-days, she always goes to movies and plays to watch and study the actors’ performances.

She is also very diligent about her body. He goes to the gym every day and works hard on muscle training. Recently, he has been using gyrotonic exercises, which are used in rehabilitation, as they are said to be the best way to strengthen the inner muscles,” said a person related to the stage.

On this day, he may have used Adachi’s and Kuroki’s play as a reference for his own acting. When the performance ended, she left the theater with the pamphlet of the play clutched to her chest as if it was very important to her.

On July 13, Kurashina announced her graduation from “Detective 7” (TV Asahi), in which she had appeared for eight years since 2015. The sudden departure came just as the first episode was airing, but Kurashina, who is stoic, had his own reasons behind it.

In February of this year, Kurashina won the Best Actress Award at the 29th Yomiuri Drama Awards. She expressed her joy by saying, “Until now, when I received compliments, I only thought they were probably flattering. This award made me feel, for the first time, that what I had done was not a mistake. Having reached a turning point in her acting career, she must have been even more eager to try out for new roles and in productions she had not yet done. Her sudden graduation from the show was not a negative thing, but rather the first step toward a new challenge.

In fact, in an interview with a magazine published the day after the announcement of her departure from the show, Kurashina expressed her aspirations as follows.

I want to get out of a series of similar roles. There are still many roles I would like to play, so I would like to continue to carefully work on each one as I continue to build my artistic career.

Kurashina is always looking ahead and never stops taking on new challenges. I wonder what role she will play next to captivate her fans.