Word: alejandro
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Rinko Kikuchi's breakthrough performance as Chieko, a deaf-mute teenager in Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel, was so convincing that co-star Cate Blanchett at first assumed the 26-year-old Japanese actress really couldn't speak. It's the kind of talent that has propelled Kikuchi from obscurity to an Oscar nomination-the first for a Japanese actress in 49 years. Kikuchi talks to Time's Michiko Toyama about Babel, isolation and her newfound fame...
...What made you want to work with the director Iñárritu? I saw Alejandro's Amores Perros and 21 Grams and loved them. When I learned he was to make a movie in Japan, I thought it would be his first and last here. I spent about a year auditioning and learning sign language. I came to make friends with girls that were deaf...
...Apparently, there was a lot of uncertainty about whether you'd get the part. Alejandro told me he would give me the role only a week before shooting began, which if I think about it now is quite amazing. [Laughs.] He initially wanted a real deaf girl for the role of Chieko. I fully understood that, but I was also trying to find what I could bring into the role as an actress. I was constructing the character of Chieko, feeling how she would have felt...
...have any language problems working with him? It was beyond that. The theme of this film is that people should be able to communicate without words. In order not to diminish my concentration, Alejandro would ask me to communicate in sign language and had it interpreted into English...
...distance with her father, the loss of her mother, she is dealing with all these problems and she is always looking for someone to be hugged by, not necessarily sexually, but also for some warmth, her simmering tension, that's the kind of thing I created during the year. Alejandro told me that he would give me the role only a week before shooting began, which if I think about it now, is quite amazing (laughs). Although I was under pressure of possibly not getting the role, but in the end, I was lucky that I had that time...