By Elaine Lies
TOKYO, Feb 10 (Reuters) – Japanese actor Ken Watanabe, an Academy Award nominee for his performance in the movie “The Last Samurai” and lauded in the recent Broadway revival of “The King and I,” is fighting stomach cancer and will certainly have actually to hold off strategies to return to Broadway.
The lean, ruggedly handsome Watanabe, that much more compared to twenty years back survived 2 bouts of leukemia, was diagnosed “virtually miraculously early” along with the cancer last month and underwent surgery, he said about Twitter.
“I was actually shocked, my wife and daughter pushed me to have actually a good health inspect and the cancer was found. It was a pretty very early phase and they operated immediately,” he added.
“I’ll be sitting down in February so my arrival in Brand-new York will certainly be somewhat delayed.”
Watanabe, 56, became the initial Japanese to be nominated for a Tony Award for his 2015 performance as the King in “The King and I” about Broadway. He possessed been specified to reprise the role, beginning from March 1, yet a statement about his Facebook page said this would certainly be postponed.
The son of school teachers in the rural northwestern prefecture of Niigata, Watanabe hoped to attend a conservatory after higher school yet abandoned the strategy because of economic problems, checking out Tokyo and straight in to acting instead.
Known at initial in Japan mainly for his samurai roles, he was diagnosed along with acute myeloid leukemia in 1989, resuming acting while still gaunt and bald from chemotherapy. The cancer returned in the very early 1990s yet he underwent therapy once again and has actually been in remission since.
His actual introduction to Western audiences came in 1993, along with the role of a rebel samurai in “The Last Samurai,” which gained him or her an Academy Award nomination for Finest Supporting Actor.
A slew of various other films followed, consisting of “Memoirs of a Geisha”, “Batman Begins”, Clint Eastwood’s “Letters from Iwo Jima” and the 2014 U.S. “Godzilla” reboot.
Approached regarding performing “The King and I”, Watanabe said his initial reaction was “‘In English? A musical? Oh no, no, no, I can easily never ever do this’,” the Brand-new York Times reported.
But he gained rave reviews and a Tony nomination for his performance, which ended in July. (Reporting by Elaine Lies; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
