Ken Watanabe

Personal information

Known for: Acting
Known credits: 104
Gender: Male
Born: October 21, 1959
Place of birth: Uonuma, Niigata, Japan
Also known as: 渡邊謙渡辺謙کِن واتانابهک ِن واتانابهKensaku WatanabeKen Watanabe

Biography

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.