HOUSE OF NINJAS (2024) Interview – Kento Kaku
Uh Kento you’ve been acting for over uh 10 years and have done very many TV and film roles what is different about House of ninjas and why is it so important to you In um first of all this show is my first Global or worldwide uh show that I’ve worked on and this is uh my very uh first show that I um got involved from the stage of planning I came up with the original ideas so I gave a lot of
Thought and Care into uh this project and in Japan not many actors uh produce uh their projects and I’ve been wondering why uh but um if actors um produce uh their shows or projects you know they can bring in their values that only actors can basically share or bring into the
Projects and because I was a part of these uh processes um the amount of care I gave into this whole project is very large uh than uh before so that is a difference and I really had a lot of fun throughout the whole process um speaking of you uh yeah
Coming up with the original concept for this show did you always see yourself playing Haru actually um in the beginning I didn’t necessarily think that I should be playing uh Haru um I first back then I thought that I could just be involved in this project
As a producer only as a producer but in a natural flow I ended up playing oh excellent um what was the challenge of doing such an action heavy role with a lot of fight Choreography practical the most challenging thing about uh these action uh sequences was that we were never using wires so uh we were doing it for real and 90 95% of the time we were doing them on our own so and we weren’t uh working on flashy action sequences we were working on practical
Um action sequences and so this keeping this uh right distance uh physical distance to pull it off uh was uh very challenging and for example when we had the club scene where at this very proxim in this proximity we were making these um non flashy movements but we wanted
Them to look flashy in the end we wanted to look big although they are not uh that significant movement wise but um so while working on these uh elements uh I realized that I’ve made a very difficult choice but then although they were very challenging and difficult I had fun
Yeah I I really actually enjoyed the club scene that was the that was a scary Halloween party for sure um this interview will be playing for a lot of martial arts fans here in the states uh do you have any American action stars that you a big fan of or would want to
Work with in the future po Tom Cruz and yeah I like uh um Tom Cruz And are you I um I’m a fan of Tom I would love to work with Tom Cruz but talking about movies in general I like um Christopher Nolan’s uh films and the actions uh depicted ofren his um films uh feel very real so I would like to work hard on my
English and one day um be one I hope I could uh be in one of um these foreign projects yes yeah that would be great I look forward to it as well thank you uh as a co-executive producer on the show how important was the casting of the family members for House of Ninjas St yes casting was uh one of um was one of the most uh difficult but one of the most important uh element of this show and uh despite the fact that we didn’t have enough time uh for our schedule and when we showed uh the potential cast
Members the script and our plot many of the um cast members gave us an okay uh from Reading just the plot and although even though we were uh working on a ninja category or ninja genre show and with an original story uh many people uh shy away from that you because there
There’s too much of an unknown as but instead of shying away um they actually got interested and they enjoyed being a part of it so throughout uh the production they gave us a lot of um suggestions and um we really had a great time uh working on this uh production
And we had the best cast and I really uh feel grateful to them oh great good good to hear good to hear uh so uh you wrote uh came up with the original concept and then they brought uh Dave Bole in to you know uh bring the project to light and
Bring more story and characters uh what was it like collaborating with him on this project For meeting uh Dave um through this project was U was uh one of the was a great uh encounter for me and um through this project um I was able to uh I learned and I saw how talented gifted he is not only as a director but
Also as a screenwriter or a writer and um he made me realize things that I uh did not see I was able to see through his perspective and um he has a good heart and um because he has such a good heart uh we all wanted to follow him and um
Thanks to uh Dave he had gave us all these ideas as well and as a team he basically propelled us um to uh go forward as a team and I really feel that it was a great encounter for me to meet Dave through this project oh that’s that
That’s good to hear that’s you know good collaborations are important um you play a guy who uh restocks vending machines for a living what are your favorite what are your favorite items to buy from a vending machine steel water only Ste water I guess what a what
A good healthy guy what a good healthy guy because I’m ninja oh yeah hey you gotta keep that body you know um so uh do you did this is your first producing project um do you plan on producing uh any more projects and what did you learn
About producing or film making um after this project for up until now I’ve been only working as an actor and I feel that actor an actor is only just a part of uh the production or the project and um a producer basically uh goes through and is involved uh throughout the whole process
Where you start from the preparation and then you’re going prep shooting and you basically also work on the promotions publicity and whatnot and um I I learned that there are so many people people involved and um so many uh processes too but we are um receiving so much power of
Strength from so many people and so many people are working and giving so much effort into it and it’s such it is a very it’s a compr it’s a very it’s a conclusive comprehensive art form uh so to speak and I do uh think that there’s an advantage of an actor being a
Producer so I would I hope to continue doing this excellent um well thank you Kento for speaking with me uh I’ve watched several episodes of the show I really enjoyed it um I wish you the best of luck with it and thank you for speaking with martial arts action Cinema
And we’ll look forward to all your future projects as well thank you thanks you so much thank you take care yeah you too bye bye
MAAC interviews Kento Kaku, star of Netflix’s House of Ninjas.
Ninjas existed throughout many pivotal times in Japanese history — but what if they were still secretly undertaking missions in modern society? Set in today’s Japan, this series tells the story of the Tawara family, the last ninja clan who abandoned their roots after a mission gone wrong. Now, an unprecedented crisis beckons the family back into action.
STARRING: Kento Kaku / Yosuke Eguchi / Tae Kimura / Kengo Kora / Aju Makita / Riho Yoshioka / Nobuko Miyamoto / Tomorowo Taguchi / Tokio Emoto / Pierre Taki / Kyusaku Shimada / Mariko Tsutsui / Tenta Banka
DIRECTED BY: Dave Boyle
RELEASE DATE: February 15, 2024 on Netflix
Interviewer: Derek Vigeant from @thegeekdomfancast1898
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