Social Entertainment / People

Ken Watanabe

Acting · Born October 21, 1959 · 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.

Movies with Ken Watanabe

• Inception (2010) — Saito
• Batman Begins (2005) — Ra's al Ghul
• The Creator (2023) — Harun
• The Last Samurai (2003) — Moritsugu Katsumoto
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) — Dr. Ishiro Serizawa
• Isle of Dogs (2018) — Head Surgeon (voice)
• Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) — Drift (voice)
• Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) — Drift (voice)
• Godzilla (2014) — Dr. Ishiro Serizawa
• Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019) — Lieutenant Hide Yoshida
• Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) — Chairman
• Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) — General Tadamichi Kuribayashi

TV shows with Ken Watanabe

• Yonimo Kimyou na Monogatari Tokubetsuhen (1990)
• Tokyo Vice (2022) — Hiroto Katagiri
• Segodon (2018) — Shimazu Nariakira
• Hanekonma (1986) — Genzo Onodera
• Unbound (2025) — Tamema Okitsugu
• Masamune Shogun (1987) — 伊達政宗
• The Secret Lives of Kyoto Folk (2015) — 東雲朔太郎
• Ikebukuro West Gate Park (2000) — Yokoyama