A GODZILLA SERIES STAR REHEARSES! Going Behind the Scenes with a Genre Legend!

Masaaki Daimon. Photo by Brett Homenick.

Yesterday (Tuesday, March 12), I was invited to visit actor Masaaki Daimon as he was rehearsing his upcoming stage play. Last year, I saw Daimon-san onstage at the same theater where this one will be performed, but I will unfortunately not be available to see any of the public performances due to my own scheduling issues. 

It was quite fascinating to see this group of actors rehearse. The cast gathered in a building in Edogawa Ward that was designed for such activities, which includes an area for building sets and props. Pretty nifty!

For a while, I thought this was my first time to see a rehearsal of a stage play in Japan, but then I remembered hanging out with Akira Takarada in 2013 when he was rehearsing one. So it's been more than ten years.

When I arrived via taxi, Daimon-san's manager (Imai-san) met me outside and led me into the premises. Shortly after I sat down, Daimon-san approached me and shook my hand. Then, for about the next hour and a half, I watched the rehearsal.

The story is about two men (one of whom is played by Daimon-san) who inexplicably undergo a time slip back to their younger days in the early 1970s. In fact, actress-singer Ayumi Ishida gets name-checked in the script, which I found pretty amusing. 

The other cast members were quite friendly, too, including Mai-san, who came up to me, introduced herself, and proceeded to have a lengthy chat with me. In fact, she joined us later for dinner! Don't you just love it when you make new friends so easily?

After the rehearsal was finished, I was asked to stand up and introduce myself to the cast in Japanese, which I did. Then we all posed for a photo in which I'm seated next to Daimon-san, and Mai-san was directly behind me. I haven't gotten a copy of this photo yet, so I hope to receive it soon.

Masaaki Daimon. Photo by Brett Homenick.

After that, the four of us (including Daimon-san, Imai-san, Mai-san, and yours truly) gathered in Imai-san's car as we went out for dinner. The night's fare was Japanese, which I found pretty tasty. Before we ate, Daimon-san asked the staff to take a photo of our group on his phone. As I've said countless times, it's always great when someone of Daimon-san's caliber wants to take a photo with you.

We must have spent a couple of hours there, but I lost count. It really was a fun evening, with Daimon-san sharing some stories about his career, as well as some of his upcoming goings-on. He also very generously signed a few autographs for me and went out of his way to make sure he spelled my name correctly in English on them.

At the end of the evening, Imai-san paid for the dinner, which was enormously generous of him. We also posed for a few more photos before piling back into Imai-san's car. We drove out to an area around Shinjuku Station (very close to the Hotel Gracery Shinjuku, in fact), at which point Mai-san and I were dropped off. I shook hands with Daimon-san before parting ways. 

What an incredible evening! After I got home, I exchanged some texts with Imai-san, who told me that Daimon-san expressed his wish that I could see one of the cast's public performances of the play. I wish I could, too, but you can't always get what you want, as Mick Jagger once told us. This evening, however, was certainly what I needed.

UPDATE (3/14): Though a bit tiny, here's the group shot I mentioned elsewhere in this blog post.