Based on a short story by Mieko Kawakami, art director/graphic designer Tetsuya Chihara directs his first film, “Ice Cream Fever,” which will be released on July 14. In addition to stars Riho Yoshioka and Serina Mottola, musicians such as Shiba of Wednesday’s Campanella and Kayoko Yoshizawa, who sings the film’s theme song, also appear in the film, with Hatori playing one of the key characters in the story.
Although he has appeared in music videos for Macaroni Empitsu, this is the first time he has appeared in a film. While he has been rolling along as a rock band for more than 10 years, Hattori, who just celebrated his 30th birthday on June 29, is now looking forward to what kind of expression he is going to pursue as an individual. We interviewed him about the behind-the-scenes of the photo shoot, in which he says he had a hard time in an environment different from that of his main battlefield, live performances, and about his current interests and expressions outside of music.
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Lily Franky’s advice that pushed Hattori. Would you be more comfortable if you were not yourself?
-This was your first time to act in a film. How interested were you in acting in the first place?
Hattori: I had a feeling that I wanted to try it, regardless of whether I could do it or not. When I had an interview with Lily Franky for a series of articles in a magazine (“MG”), he told me, “I think you will eventually be asked to be an actor, so you should jump in when that happens.
Hatori: The way Lily said that had a …… mysterious power that I could easily accept. I had always liked her very much, and for some reason I thought at the time, “If that’s what Lily-san said, then there must be no doubt about it. So when I heard about this project, I thought, “Let’s jump in.
-Lily, you are indeed like a prophecy (laughs).
Hattori: But when I think back, a friend of my father’s owned a theater company, and I vividly remember going to see plays when I was little. The teacher at the preschool I went to also did theater, and I was very familiar with “acting,” so perhaps I had an interest in it from an early age.
formed “Macaroni Empitsu” in 2012. He is the main songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist in the band. His emotional voice, catchy melodies, and unique world of lyrics have made him popular among people of all ages, and he has sung theme songs for numerous commercials, movies, and TV dramas. He won the Best New Artist Award at the “Japan Record Awards,” and the following year he won the Best Picture Award for the second year in a row! In addition to his band activities, he has participated as a narrator in NHK’s program “Words of the Great Archived by NHK” and published his first lyrics collection “Kotoba no Tane” (Seeds of Words), which has become a topic of conversation.
-I think it’s a little different from acting, but in a sense, you have been living a “life of becoming”. In another interview, he told us that he used to play as an anime character when he was a child. I thought there might be a connection between those qualities and the job of “acting.
Hattori: This may sound like another quote from Lily-san, but she once said something like, “It’s easier to be myself if I’m not myself. She said that it was more difficult when she was in writing mode, where she had to write about herself, and that it was easier when she was in acting mode, where she was playing someone other than herself. When you write a novel or an essay, you can’t lie and you have to reveal yourself.
I understand that feeling very well, and in my case, it is simply more enjoyable and exciting to aspire to something rather than to be myself. I think everyone’s life is a search for what they are, but if you are forbidden to admire or imitate someone else and continue searching for yourself, I think it would be very painful.
Hattori: It would be more enjoyable and less stressful for me if I had an object that I wanted to be like and spent time wondering how I could be like it or how I could get close to it. I think that may be what Lily means when she says, “It’s easier not to be myself.
–I guess you could say that being an actor is a profession where you find out who you are by becoming someone you are not.
Hattori: That may be so. You meet a new you when you play the role of someone who is not you. Well, for a very successful actor, he/she may not even have a chance to think about “Who am I? It must be very difficult for them, though. It would be a misnomer to say that it is …… “easy” to always be playing someone else or becoming something other than yourself, but I think that’s where the fun is.
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The difficulty of acting is completely different from that of usual live performances. I thought to myself, “My voice is so tiny.
-What were your impressions of the actual filming?
Hattori: It was difficult. The first scene I shot with Riho Yoshioka’s character Natsumi was still good. I was nervous because I knew Riho Yoshioka was there, but I could speak at a volume appropriate for that person, and I was able to act on the premise that it was a conversation.
Hattori: But the next scene is the one where he makes a phone call while unpacking, and he is talking to himself. He is talking to himself. It was a difficult scene for an amateur to act without a partner. From the audience’s point of view, it looks like there is only one person in the room, but there are many staff members around the camera, silently looking at us. It was very embarrassing (laughs).
(Laughs.) – Is it totally different from singing in front of a lot of people at a live concert?
Hattori: It is different. The person I am when I am performing live or doing something I am good at is totally different from the person I am when I am doing something I am not confident in, such as acting. I was embarrassed by how small I sounded, and I thought to myself, “My voice is so tiny!
(laughs) Even though I usually sing with such a loud voice (laughs).
Hattori: I didn’t know where to start. But the microphone was amazing. I think the microphone must have been used to poke me during editing, but when I looked at the finished product, my voice came out perfectly. I was like, “Is this coming through? I wasn’t sure if my voice was coming out at all.
-How was the scene with Mr. Yoshioka?
Hattori: It was a normal conversation scene with Mr. Yoshioka, but I didn’t want to be too much like my normal self. I didn’t want to sound too much like my usual self. The role wasn’t about being flirtatious, but rather about having an intellectual look and a quiet demeanor, so I didn’t want to show too much of my usual self, so I had to think about how to use language while acting.
I thought it would be difficult to act the role while thinking about the right words to use.
Hattori: I am a normal person, or rather, I am a normal person, but I am a little bit plain. Well, my private self is also normal or very suspicious (laughs), so it’s fine to be just as I am, but the most difficult thing is probably to be plain, even at …….
The more eccentric you are, the more likely you are to be able to swing out of it. Once you have done this kind of work, you start to think, “Now I want to try this kind of work,” and it would be interesting to play more outlandish, character-driven roles.
-Is there a role you would like to play already?
Hattori: I’d like to play the role of a …… rascal (laughs). I would like to play someone who is very vague but messed up. Well, even if I had such an opportunity, I would prefer not to have too many people around during the filming. I’d like them to use hidden cameras or fixed-point cameras (laughs).
(laughs). – That kind of concept might be good for a documentary-like style, though (laughs).
Hattori: I think it’s amazing that actors can do bed scenes while being watched. I think, “How could they do this scene so naturally? I also think of Toshiyuki Nishida’s “Tsuribaka nisshi” (Fishing Fool’s Journal). It looks super natural.
-Of course, professional actors are amazing, aren’t they?
Hattori: When I saw how it turned out this time, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I was expecting it to be so bad that I couldn’t even look at it, but the editing was very good and the texture of the images was very stylish, so I thought, “It’s okay, I can see it. When I had an interview with Mr. Yoshioka for “MG,” he told me, “My manager was raving about your performance and said it was very good,” which made me say …… “Manager, huh?
(Laughs) – You really wanted to be praised by Mr. Yoshioka himself (laughs).
Hattori: But I was very happy. It is really nice to have even one person say something like that to me.
