"Sasaki, In, My Mine" Director Takuya Uchiyama x Gaku Hosokawa I was determined not to run away from entertainment [Director's Interview Vol.96]

Actor Fujiwara Seasons matched by two people

Q: This brings us to the topic of casting.

Hosokawa: Since I was planning it myself, I wanted to play the main character, and Yuuji is me, so maybe I should play him myself... Honestly, I had a lot of mixed feelings. But then Uchiyama said to me, "Which would you regret more: you playing Yuuji and another actor playing Sasaki and succeeding, or you playing Sasaki and someone else playing Yuuji and failing?"

Uchiyama: I wanted to say that even if he failed, he wanted to draw Sasaki because he wanted to see the scenery that Sasaki saw.

Hosokawa: I wanted to play Sasaki, so I started writing this story, but the truth is that I had been running away from it for a long time. I had no vision of how to play Sasaki at all.

Uchiyama: I was telling Takeru in a roundabout way, "Don't run away." So at one point Takeru made up his mind and was finally cast as Sasaki.

Q: Looking at Hosokawa now, he doesn't look like the man who played Sasaki at all... That's how much Sasaki possessed him in the film. Once it was decided that Hosokawa would play Sasaki, how were the roles of Sasaki's friends, Yuji, Tada, Kimura, etc., decided?

Uchiyama: I met Yusaku Mori, who played Kimura, because he was an acquaintance of Takeru's, but regardless of our meeting, I had wanted Mori to play a character like Kimura even before the script was completed. I met Shintaro Yuya, who played Tada, during the audition. Anyway, I felt that there were a lot of things about Tada during the audition, so I pushed him a lot.

Q: How was Kisetsu Fujiwara chosen to play the role of Yuuji?

Hosokawa: If I were to play Sasaki, then the question would arise of who would play Yuji, but there are a lot of actors of our generation who are good at acting. Among them, Fujiwara Kisetsu immediately came to mind. I've worked with him on other productions, and his acting is amazing, as if he were releasing the heat he holds back every day and letting it all over the place. I don't really like to admit that he's from the same generation, but I thought he was a really good actor. So I suggested him to Uchiyama.

Uchiyama: As for the casting, I thought it would be better to have Takeru express his feelings first, so I asked him to suggest it. But actually, I had Fujiwara Kisetsu in my mind. Since Takeru and Fujiwara Kisetsu were in agreement, there was no reason for me to object, and it was decided on in a flash.

Director swimming with actors