A circle of friends connected by goof-touch! The radio program “GRAND MARQUEE” features “FIST BUMP” in which people who live and enjoy Tokyo appear in a relay format.
On May 18, freestyle basketball player ZiNEZ introduced Moctar, a model and actor, to us. We asked him about his unexpected debut and the story behind Panther Ogata’s surprise surprise on “London Hearts”.
INDEX
From Yokohama FC junior youth to appearing in “Atom’s Child
Celeina (MC): Mr. Mokhtar, is it okay if I call you “Mokkun”?
Moctar: I am Mokkun. It’s nice to meet you.
Celeina: Nice to meet you.
Takano (MC): We are getting closer now.
Celeina: I thought for sure I had seen Mokkun somewhere before, so I looked him up. Then I realized that I had seen him in the drama “Atom’s Child”. You were in the drama “Atom’s Child”, weren’t you?
Moctar: I did appear in it.
Celeina: He is a very key person.
Moctar: I played the role of headhunting the two leads (laughs). I was surprised myself.
Celeina: Thank you very much (laughs).
Takano: So you are active in a wide range of fields.
Moctar: Thank you very much. I’m just a humble Afro.
Celeina: No, no (laughs). First of all, you were a member of Yokohama FC’s junior youth team until junior high school, weren’t you?
Moctar: Yes, that’s right. From junior high school to working age, my life was pretty soccer-intensive.
Celeina: That’s amazing. But, if you were in the junior youth team, you already became a professional …….
Moctar: It’s a steep road. The pros are really amazing.
Takano: How did you go from there to modeling?
Moctar: I entered university when I was 20 years old. I had only played soccer up until then, but I decided to study, so I sat in a chair for the first time.
Celeina: No, but it says “Aoyama Gakuin University” on the back (laughs).
Moctar: It took me two years, but the first year I practiced sitting in a chair, and the second year I started to read and write properly. I started to read properly in the second year, while delivering newspapers with a shaved head.
Takano: Are you serious?
Moctar: The side effects made my eyesight a little worse. I was only watching the ball.
Takano: Wait a minute. Your comedy talk skills have improved as well (laughs).
Celeina: We’ve been swallowed up too (laughs).
Moctar: We go back and forth, so please guide us in the direction of the conversation (laughs).
Takano: So you went to Aoyama Gakuin. That’s great.
Moctar: Aoyama Gakuin is a fashionable place, isn’t it? It’s in Omotesando.
Celeina: Is that where you got your start as a fashion and model?
Moctar: If I abbreviate it, it’s ……, right (laughs).
Celeina: I’m sorry, I skipped over it (laughs).
Moctar: You are going to college, right? I’ll be in Tokyo. And my hometown is Hodogaya-ku, Kanagawa Prefecture. Please remember me as “the black panther of Hodogaya. That’s what I call myself (laughs). (Laughs.) Since I was going from there to Omotesando, my mother said to me at my parents’ house, while cutting green onions, “You look so unusual, why don’t you use it? She said, “You look so rare, why don’t you use it?
Takano: I see. So you gave me some advice on how to make the best use of their appearance.
Moctar: From there, I started knocking around, looking into various foreign offices, and decided to give it a try. That was the beginning.
Celeina: You have a lot of vitality. Did you already belong to an agency from there?
Moctar: No, I did not. I joined a regular office where foreigners living in Japan can register. I got some small jobs as extras and so on. I was lucky to get my first chance, somehow, in a TBS drama called “Crocoach,” starring Tomoya Nagase, about a 300 million yen case, and there was a theory that one of the culprits was half-Japanese. I was chosen to play the role of the best friend of Keisuke Koide, who played the other criminal.
Celeina: Did you start out as an actor rather than a model?
Moctar: Yes, I did.
Celeina: That’s amazing. You’ve been playing soccer all your life and suddenly you’re an actor?
Moctar: Yes, I did. At the time, I was in college and I had a girl I liked. I wanted to be recognized by her on a big campus, so I went into the audition with a stimulus like, “I want to be recognized! I was inspired to audition for the role. It didn’t work out particularly well (laughs).
Takano: It’s good to see your personality, Mokkun, that you are motivated by that.
Moctar: Thank you very much.
Celeina: In your career as an actor and model, are there any particular scenes or productions that stand out in your memory?
Moctar: The first Uniqlo commercial I shot was a joy, though I was happy just to get the project, like in 2016. I went to the sauna a week before I went to the audition. I think I was a sauna person ahead of my time (laughs).
Celeina: Sauna? By the way.
Moctar: Moderately. Sorry, I would definitely lose to a real sauner (laughs).
Celeina: Here is the real Sauna.
Takano: I’m not a real sauna, I just like saunas. Let’s go sometime.
Moctar: May I? Let me set it up.
Takano: To get you ready (laughs). There is so much variety, and I have so many questions.
Celeina: Let’s take a break and talk about the music. It might bring out a new side of you. What is the one song that Mokkun selected for us?
Moctar: A nice one that makes you want to slip out into the night, like this at dusk, when the sky is turning a little purple to orange. “DAPPER” by Domo Genesis feat. Anderson .Paak.
