Directors Miwa Nishikawa and Nobuhiro Yamashita talk about "Film and Whisky" Part 1: Love Cinema. Love Whisky.
Actors who look good with whiskey
Q: When you hear about someone who suits whiskey, what kind of actor do you imagine?
Yamashita: The first person that comes to mind is Shintaro Katsu. He has a cool, mature vibe. Peter Falk also appeared in a whiskey commercial a long time ago (he appeared in commercials for Suntory Old and Suntory Royal in the 80s and 90s).
Nishikawa: Not long ago, there was a trend to use foreign actors in whiskey commercials.
Yamashita: Jeff Bridges is a good choice these days. He was drinking whiskey the whole time in Crazy Heart (2009). If Jeff Bridges was in a whiskey commercial, I'd definitely buy it.
Nishikawa: That would be influenced.
Yamashita: He may be the actor who looks best with whiskey right now.
Q: What actresses would look good drinking whiskey? I have the image of strong, cool women, like Gena Rowlands.
Nishikawa: It certainly suits Gena Rowlands.
Yamashita: John Cassavetes' films seem to feature a lot of whiskey. What's more, there are a lot of actors who look good with whiskey. Peter Falk, Ben Gazzara, The Day After Cassavetes himself all look better with whiskey than with beer.
Nishikawa: "Husbands" (1970) is a movie about men drinking a lot, so of course they drank a lot of whiskey.
Director Miwa Nishikawa
Yamashita: The other day, I was drinking with Mukai (Kosuke) and actor Yamamoto Takeshi and we were talking about movies that have whiskey in them, and the one they were both excited about was " The Color of Money " (director: Martin Scorsese, 1986). It starts with a scene where Paul Newman is doing some kind of liquor wholesale and Tom Cruise is playing billiards in the back of the store. (*In the opening scene, a shot of a glass of whiskey is shown, and Paul Newman is heard talking to a female customer about the color of single malt.)
Nishikawa: Paul Newman is also an actor who looks good with whiskey.
Q: What about film directors? In Japan, director Akira Kurosawa appeared in a whiskey commercial a long time ago.
Yamashita: I see, Mr. Kurosawa. As for Japanese directors, Juzo Itami would also be a good choice.
Nishikawa: But the types seem to be different. Kurosawa likes American whiskey, and Itami likes Irish whiskey.
Yamashita: Kurosawa has a grand and wild vibe, while Itami has an English gentleman vibe.
Nishikawa: Whiskey also features prominently in Kurosawa's " High and Inferno " (1963). I remember that in the home of the company executive played by Toshiro Mifune, whiskey in a glass decanter was placed in a cabinet-like place. Scenes like that often appear in old American movies. When guests come to the house, they're like, "Hey, how about a drink?" I always thought of it as a Western culture, but the fact that it appears in "High and Inferno" makes me wonder if that kind of lifestyle actually existed in Japan too.
Yamashita: Come to think of it, my father also had whiskey on display at home. He usually drank "Daruma" (Suntory Old), and the more expensive ones he would display carefully on a shelf without opening. Well, it's a little different from the culture of just having one glass at a time.
Follow official SNS
