With Hugh Jackman’s latest X-Men outing The Wolverine set to open in cinemas this week, Ozzy Armstrong chats with Tao Okamoto about her role as Logan’s latest love interest Mariko….
Ozzy Armstrong: First of all I just wanted to know how you got into this. Obviously you’re from a modelling background, how did you make the transition?
Tao Okamoto: Okay, so I got a call from my Japanese modelling agent and he said about this audition and I hadn’t tried acting before and said I’m not interested in acting. He said ‘Are you crazy? You could play a lead with Hugh Jackman in a movie!’ (laughs). As soon as I found out it was Hugh I said ‘okay let me try’. At the start, I was very selfish, I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to act in this movie or not until I met James Mangold in L.A. for a camera test. He taught me everything you need to work. That was my first acting class, to study or know about acting and it made me feel like [it was] what I was looking for for a long time. I just fell in love with his ideas, his way to direct people, so I worked harder with them and got a third (and last) audition and that was reading with Hugh. Hugh decided to do improvisation but I didn’t know what improvisation was as obviously that was my first time acting. I tried to stay on script but he was pulling me away and I was like ‘What? Where are you going?’ and we ended up kissing each other for some reason and I just collapsed from the chair. I was like, ‘Did I just kiss Hugh Jackman?’ So that was how it started. There are some very similar things between modelling and acting. I think I was always acting in front of cameras for picture shooting for magazines and campaigns and stuff so of course I loved that now I could use my full body, voice and much more action. So it wasn’t so hard for me.
OA: How did you prepare yourself for the role? Did you have any acting lessons or did you learn everything on set?
TO: I asked James if I needed to take any lessons before we started shooting because I was so worried that I had no experience and I’m going to be co-starring with Hugh Jackman. I was really concerned but he said not to do any lessons because I think he didn’t want anybody to give me any bad advice. I think he had wanted to train me himself and he did that and I loved it.
OA: You’ve mentioned Hugh there but I have to ask, how was it working with Hiroyuki Sanada?
TO: I didn’t know Hiro was in this movie until I went to the first day and I was like oh my god. Hugh Jackman already means a lot to me and now Hiro Sanada. It was putting me under so much pressure but both of them are great actors and also great people and so generous. I’d ask him questions like, I don’t know how to cry or I don’t know how to express that feeling. They both had great empathy so they could understand how difficult it was for me to do something like this for my first time and I think they still remember their first time and how hard it was for them. I was really grateful for the experience.
OA: You’ve mentioned a couple of things there but first of all what made you want to go for this role before you went for anything else?
TO: I didn’t actually get much information about Mariko before I started auditioning as it was a very confidential project but I could see that there was something interesting about her. Very dark and very isolated, very twisted and not very ordinary. That was something that really interested me and I think I could build her character a little differently from the comic book. I was told by James that he said that he didn’t like Mariko before at all – he said that she was just a hot chick or something like that. But he rewrote the character a bit for me and I was really grateful.
OA: There are quite a few similarities between your character Mariko and Wolverine. They’re both quite lonely and isolated.
TO: Yeah absolutely. That was something they could share between them, being outcasts. Being different from others, not having normal lives. I think that they both wished to have normal lives. Mariko needed Logan as a friend and family and they both couldn’t trust anybody, couldn’t open up to anybody.
OA: One last question. Obviously Jean Grey was Logan’s last love interest, played by Famke Janssen. Do you think there was a lot of pressure following in her footsteps?
TO: Absolutely. We have some scenes where people will be comparing us you know. She [Janssen] has such great career experience and of course she knows how to work with Hugh Jackman better than me and that put me under pressure. Obviously we are so different and the story is so different but I definitely respect her as a great actress.
Many thanks to Tao Okamoto for taking the time for this interview.
Ozzy Armstrong is a Stargate and Rocky superfan. Follow him on Twitter.
The Wolverine is released in UK cinemas this Thursday (July 25th) and opens in North America the following Day. Read Ozzy’s ★★★★★ review here along with his previous interview with Rila Fukushima (Yukio) and check back tomorrow as he speaks to Will Yun Lee about his role as Harada, a.k.a. The Silver Samurai.
