Renowned Japanese stage and film actor, Tatsuya Nakadai, celebrated for his roles in several Akira Kurosawa masterpieces including Ran, has died at the age of 92, his acting school announced on Tuesday.
Nakadai first gained prominence both in Japan and abroad through director Masaki Kobayashi’s acclaimed anti-war trilogy The Human Condition in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
His acting school, Mumeijuku, confirmed his death but did not disclose when he passed away or provide additional details.
Nakadai made a brief appearance in Kurosawa’s 1954 classic Seven Samurai, but later became the director’s leading man after the departure of Toshiro Mifune. He went on to star as the main character in Kurosawa’s Kagemusha (1980), which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and portrayed a tragic warlord dividing his kingdom among his sons in Ran (1985), Kurosawa’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear.
Beyond his collaborations with Kurosawa, Nakadai appeared in Yojimbo (1961) alongside Mifune and worked with several other celebrated filmmakers, including Hiroshi Teshigahara and Kon Ichikawa.
In 1975, Nakadai founded the private acting school and theatre troupe Mumeijuku with his late wife, actress Yasuko Miyazaki, to mentor and train young talents. Among his former students is Koji Yakusho, who won the Best Actor award at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival for his role in Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days.
Nakadai remained active in his later years, performing as recently as this year at a theatre in Japan’s Noto region, which continues to recover from a deadly earthquake that struck on New Year’s Day last year.
