If you are an aspiring filmmaker be sure to watch my illuminating conversation on this week’s episode of my Deadline video series, Behind The Lens. My guest is the director and co-writer of the new film, Rental Family , Hikari who is proof positive that coming to America, speaking little English, and taking every odd job imaginable can indeed lead to a successful career in the film industry, and now a major Searchlight movie starring Oscar winner Brendan Fraser.
From selling shoes, makeup, designing costumes, being a ski instructor, getting gigs as a waitress, and giving tours to tourists in Las Vegas, Hikari has done it all since landing in America and living in Utah before finally finding her way to Hollywood. The writer/director/producer also became an actor herself, and is living the dream now behind the lens with Rental Family, a movie that won several audience awards on the festival circuit before opening a few days ago, and she is finding the normally closed doors of the industry a little easier to open after its success.
We talk about the themes of her new movie which is based on an actual thriving business in her native Japan with about 300 companies that rent out services of people and actors to fill a void in the often lonely everyday lives of their real-life customers. And for Hikari some of the film hit very close to her own experience and is incorporated into this heartwarming story of the need for human connection, especially in these divided times.
We also talk about how Hikari is a name she had to adopt to avoid being forever linked with a multiple Oscar-winning director whom she also happens to idolize but who has no familial connection with her, thus the name change. She will explain that, as well as the friendship she struck with Stevie Wonder after waiting on his table at the now defunct Sunset Strip restaurant, House Of Blues where she worked as a waitress.
There is so much more, so join us for this conversation and go ‘behind the lens’ with Hikari by clicking the link above.
Join me this Oscar season every Monday for a new edition of Behind The Lens, and every Wednesday for a new episode of The Actor’s Side.