Acting
Ken Watanabe
Oct 21, 1959 (66 years) 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 Academy Prize for Best Actor twice, in 2007 for Memories of Tomorrow and in 2010 for Shizumanu Taiyō. He is also known for his roles in director Christopher Nolan's Hollywood blockbusters Batman Begins and Inception.
Known for
8.4
Inception
Saito
7.7
Batman Begins
Ra's al Ghul
7.6
The Last Samurai
Moritsugu Katsumoto
6.0
Transformers: Age of Extinction
Drift (voice)
6.4
Godzilla
Dr. Ishiro Serizawa
7.8
Isle of Dogs
Head Surgeon (voice)
8.1
Alice in Borderland
Old Gentleman
6.7
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
Dr. Ishiro Serizawa
6.9
Pokémon Detective Pikachu
Lieutenant Hide Yoshida
6.1
Transformers: The Last Knight
Drift (voice)
7.0
The Creator
Harun
7.6
Memoirs of a Geisha
Chairman
7.5
Letters from Iwo Jima
General Tadamichi Kuribayashi
7.9
Tokyo Vice
Hiroto Katagiri
5.9
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
Mr. Tall
Filmography
8.5
Samurai Vengeance
2026 · Kinji Shinoda
Yamazaki Riverside - Over an Actor's Shoulder -
2026 · Self
Kyotojin no Hisokana Tanoshimi Rouge: Keisho
2026 · 東雲朔太郎
7.9
Kokuho
2025 · Hanjiro Hanai
9.3
Unbound
2025 · Tamema Okitsugu
8.0
TRUE COLORS
2025 · Taichirou Tsujimura
7.7
The Final Piece
2025 · Shigeyoshi Toumyo
LA PANTHÈRE DE CARTIER
2025
7.1
Kensuke's Kingdom
2024 · Kensuke (voice)
7.2
All Lives
2024
7.0
The Creator
2023 · Harun
6.2
True Love: Making The Creator
2023 · Self
7.9
Tokyo Vice
2022 · Hiroto Katagiri
8.1
Alice in Borderland
2020 · Old Gentleman
6.5
Fukushima 50
2020 · Masao Yoshida
7.0
Toubousha
2020
7.0
劇場の灯を消すな！PARCO劇場編
2020
6.7
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
2019 · Dr. Ishiro Serizawa
6.9
Pokémon Detective Pikachu
2019 · Lieutenant Hide Yoshida
An Artist of the Floating World
2019 · Ono Masuji
7.8
Isle of Dogs
2018 · Head Surgeon (voice)
5.3
7 Guardians of the Tomb
2018 · Father
5.4
Bel Canto
2018 · Katsumi Hosokawa
8.3
Segodon
2018 · Shimazu Nariakira
7.0
The King and I
2018 · The King of Siam
6.1
Transformers: The Last Knight
2017 · Drift (voice)
9.0
NHK WORLD PRIME
2017 · Self - Presenter
Dirty, Clean, & Inbetween
2017 · Restaurant Patron
The Memories of Happiness
2017 · Taro Miura
6.2
The Sea of Trees
2016 · Takumi Nakamura