File:Ken_Watanabe_20220615.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
OverviewAI-generated
Ken Watanabe is a Japanese film, television, and stage actor who began his work period in 1979. Born Kensaku Watanabe in Uonuma, Niigata, Japan, he is a male citizen of Japan. He speaks and writes in Japanese and English. His notable works include the films *Tampopo*, *The Sea and Poison*, *The Last Samurai*, and *Memoirs of a Geisha*.
Watanabe has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. He is married to Kaho Minami, and they have a child named Anne Watanabe. He has been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. In his personal life, he is interested in the Hanshin Tigers.
Synthesized by Vinony from 24 facts across 2 sources: Wikidata, TMDb. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Film & TV
Uonuma, Niigata, Japan
Ken Watanabe (born October 21, 1959) is a Japanese stage, film, and television actor. To English-speaking audiences he is known for playing tragic hero characters, such as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi in Letters from Iwo Jima and Lord Katsumoto Moritsugu in The Last Samurai, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Among other awards, he has won the Japan…
Known for
- Samurai Vengeance — Kinji Shinoda2026
- Kyotojin no Hisokana Tanoshimi Rouge: Keisho — 東雲朔太郎2026
- Kokuho — Hanjiro Hanai2025
- The Final Piece — Shigeyoshi Toumyo2025
- LA PANTHÈRE DE CARTIER2025
- Unbound — Tamema Okitsugu2025
- TRUE COLORS — Taichirou Tsujimura2025
- All Lives2024
- Kensuke's Kingdom — Kensuke (voice)2024
- The Creator — Harun2023
via TMDB
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Family name
- Watanabe
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- Japan
- Place of birth
- Uonuma
- Spouse
- Kaho Minami
- Child
- Anne Watanabe
- Occupation
- television actor
- Languages spoken
- English language
- Native language
- Japanese
- Notable work
- Memoirs of a Geisha
- Mass
- 80
- Official website
- www.kenwatanabe-official.com
- Image
- Ken Watanabe 20220615.jpg
- Height
- 184
Show 12 more facts
- Commons category
- Ken Watanabe
- date of birth
- 1959-10-21
- nominated for
- Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical
- name in kana
- わたなべ けん
- name in native language
- 渡辺謙
- medical condition
- acute myeloid leukemia
- start of work period
- 1979-00-00
- writing language
- Japanese
- ethnic group
- Japanese people
- social media followers
- 215901
- birth name
- Vatanabe Kenszaku
- interested in
- Hanshin Tigers
Sources (9)
via Wikidata · CC0
~11 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Ken Watanabe (渡辺 謙, Watanabe Ken; born October 21, 1959) is a Japanese actor. He is best known for playing tragic hero characters, such as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi in Letters from Iwo Jima and Lord Katsumoto Moritsugu in The Last Samurai, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Among other awards, Watanabe has won the Japan Academy Film Prize for Best Actor twice, in 2007 for Memories of Tomorrow and in 2010 for The Unbroken. He is also known for his roles in Christopher Nolan's films Batman Begins and Inception, as well as Memoirs of a Geisha, and Pokémon Detective Pikachu.
In 2014, he starred in the reboot Godzilla as Dr. Ishiro Serizawa, a role he reprised in the sequel, Godzilla: King of the Monsters. He lent his voice to the fourth and fifth installments of the Transformers franchise respectively, Transformers: Age of Extinction and Transformers: The Last Knight, as Decepticon-turned-Autobot Drift. In 2022, he starred in the HBO Max crime drama series Tokyo Vice.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Ken Watanabe” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.