Longing to Collaborate: Did “That Actress” Encourage Kuroki Hana’s Independence?

The start of a new year has brought a “rush” of resignations from a number of well-known actors, including Kuranosuke Sasaki (56), Ryuta Sato (44), and Tetsushi Tanaka (58), and actresses Mikako Tabe (35), Wakana Sakai (43), and Asami Usuda (39). On March 29, Kuroki Hana (34) announced that she would be leaving her agency Papadoo and going independent at the end of March.

Kuroki commented on her gratitude to her old agency, saying, “As a university student in Kyoto, I am sincerely grateful for the many experiences and learning opportunities you have given me over the past 13 years since my debut, and for the many wonderful works I have been involved in.

Kuroki’s old employer, “Papadoo,” saw the departure of longtime employees Takako Matsu (46) in 2011 and Eita Nagayama (41) in 2009, both of whom are still at the forefront of their careers, but Kuroki has also decided to leave. She says that one of her senior actresses was behind her big decision.

Kuroki, who was born in Osaka, was an ace in her high school’s prestigious drama club and studied acting more seriously at university. While in college, she was discovered by director Hideki Noda (68) in his workshop and made her acting debut in 2010 on the NODA-MAP stage.

Since then, she has also performed on the stage of the late Yukio Ninagawa, and has become a hot newcomer in the theater world. In the second half of the 2012 NHK TV series “Jun to Ai,” she made her first TV drama appearance, playing a fellow employee of the heroine, played by Natsuna (34).

That actress was Yō Yoshida (age undisclosed), who at the time was not yet as well known as she is today. According to Yoshida in an interview with ORICON NEWS in January of last year, they exchanged contact information in “Jun to Ai,” although they did not have many scenes together.

Kuroki then made her first appearance in a film directed by Yoji Yamada in “Little House,” which was released in 2002. For her performance in this film, she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival, the fourth Japanese actress to achieve this feat. On that occasion, she revealed how they became friends : “I sent her an e-mail saying congratulations, and invited her to have dinner with me sometime, and that’s when we started going out for drinks sometimes.

Kuroki, on the other hand, also said in the same interview that Yoshida is “an older sister, but her unpretentiousness is very comfortable, and I feel like she is a close friend and a bit of a relative. The two also co-starred together for the first time in the movie “Ichikei no Karasu” starring Yutaka Takenouchi (53), which was released in January of last year. On that occasion, Kuroki commented, ‘I always want to be with you, Sheep-san.

They are always together in private, and were once scooped on a “Nakameguro date. Mr. Kuroki has been seriously discussing his independence with Ms. Yoshida since the filming of “Ichikei no Karasu” (The Raven of Ichikei).

Mr. Yoshida had been working with a female manager at the office he had belonged to before his breakthrough, but they parted ways for some reason, and Mr. Yoshida left the company at the end of 2006. She left at the end of 2006. She is now working for a private firm. Since Ms. Yoshida has such a strong life style, Mr. Kuroki has heard about various uncertainties after becoming independent, and when they were resolved, he decided to leave the company and become independent,” said a TV station insider.

Kuroki has several upcoming films, including “Seishun 18 x 2: Kimi e no Tsunagaeru Michi” (Youth 18 x 2: The Road Leading to You), which will be released on May 3, but these are jobs that were offered to her when she was an old friend. It will be interesting to see what Kuroki, who is already an accomplished actress in her own right, will choose for her first film as an independent actress.

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