L/R15 “Nano Ai” “The cat ran away” Hideo Josada × Rikiya Imaizumi The fun of changing the script I wrote [Director's Interview Vol.195]

LOL⁉︎ Movie director played by Oswald Shunsuke Ito

Q: The film director played by Oswald's Ito in "The Cat Ran Away" was also a very interesting character.

Jyojo: The character itself was in the script, and the "eros and agape" he talks about was written as a symbol to show him as an intellectual and annoying person who says such things. But I never expected it to be expanded like that (laughs). That part certainly made me laugh out loud.

Imaizumi: I exaggerated it (laughs). In the script, there were only a few preview scenes (in which the film directed by Ito-san is shown).

Joji: That's right. They don't even mention the content of the movie that will be shown at the preview. They just say something like "They're showing a movie that I don't understand."

Imaizumi: The narration for that movie was dubbed by Koji Seto, but originally it was recorded in Ito's voice. But since Ito's voice continues to speak after the preview scene, I asked Seto to replace it.

Jyosada: It was originally recorded by Ito-san.

Imaizumi: We recorded Ito's voice on set, and it was really interesting. As expected. So I asked Seto to follow Ito's intonation exactly.

“The cat ran away” ©2021 “The cat ran away” Film Partners

Jyosada: Did you ask Ito-san to improvise?

Imaizumi: The content he reads is the same as the script, but he arranged the intonation and the feeling of speaking arrogantly himself. When recording only the audio on the set, we usually move to a quiet place to record, but the quietest place at that time was the preview venue, so it was a mysterious space where Ito read out in front of a lot of extras (laughs), and the moment the recording was over, all the audience members burst out laughing. It was a very strange atmosphere and it was funny.

Originally, I offered the role to Mr. Ito without much thought, but I'm really glad that he accepted.

Shirosada: You're busy right now.

Imaizumi: Even though he was busy, he managed to remember his lines. When he practiced his lines with his manager, he was from Tohoku and had a really strong accent, so he had a hard time with that (laughs). He also talked about this shoot on the radio, and when he was actually shooting, he saw Maikuma-san and Teshima-san in front of him and they looked so close that he thought, "Are these two really dating?" and he thought actors are really amazing.

Joji: But there are times when you think like that, don't you? It's like they create that kind of atmosphere. Of course, they're not really dating. Maikuma-san and Teshima-san had a good distance between them and created a good atmosphere.

Imaizumi: It was a really strange distance. Normally, it would be like they'd be really close, but it wasn't very sexy, it was a unique distance.

Director of photography: Masaki Watanabe and Yuko Hirami