Hidetoshi Nishijima (45) is one of the most established and popular actor in Japan nowadays. Debuted in 1994, the Tokyo born actor already starred in more than 30 movie and doramas, including Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s License to Live (1998) and Takeshi Kitano’s Dolls (2002). But, even though he has been in the industry for a long time, Nishijima reached the peak of his career in his 40s, by making a breakthrough in 2014 and appearing in taiga dorama, asadora, and many commercials. Let’s find more about him!
His childhood dream was to be a scientist. When he was an elementary student, Nishijima watched Torn Curtain (1966), and fell in love with Paul Newman’s physicist/rocket scientist character. “He looks really smart and I think that’s really cool,” he said.
He’s actually a ‘bullied’ character. Despite his ‘macho’ and ‘cool’ character, Nishijima is actually a sweet guy. In an appearance in SMAP xSMAP, his co-star in Strawbery Night (2013) Yuko Takeuchi revealed that Nishijima often ‘bullied’ by other co-star. “He often forced to do something funny by others,” Takeuchi explained. She also said that Nishijima can do a Tetsuya Takeda impersonation very well, but denied by an embarrased Nishijima, “I never did that!”.
He has lost and gained weight for his movies. Nishijima gained 13 kg for playing an older character in Sayonara Itsuka (2010), and then for the sake of playing the younger character, he lost 15 kg in just one month. But his much talked appearance was when he appeared on taiga dorama ‘Yae no Sakura’ (2013) as samurai Yamamoto Kakuma with a bulky, muscular body.
He has a sweet tooth. There was a story when he brought more than 30 kind of carefully selected sweets and coffee as a 差し入れ (sashiire) for his co-stars and staffs at the shooting location. His co-stars then called his sashiire as “Nishijima Cafe”. (note: sashiire means gift, usually food or drink as an appreciation/refreshment)
He’s out of market. Nishijima has already married on December 2014 to a non-celebrity woman after dated for three years. It was said that his wife used to be an employee in an automobile showroom and resemble actress Koyuki. Well, Nishijima sure give you a gentle husband/papa aura. Just take a look at his commercials below!
compiled from various source
image credit: lwoyr(dot)com
