Rie Miyazawa

Actor

Tokyo, Japan

April 6, 1973

Biography

Rie Miyazawa is a Japanese actress and former teen idol. She is regarded as one of Japan's top actresses, and her accolades include six Japan Academy Film Prizes and three Kinema Junpo Awards Miyazawa began her career as a child model, seeing wide exposure as the original face of Mitsui Rehouse, and made her acting debut in the 1988 film Seven Day's War, for which she won the Japan Academy Award for Newcomer of the Year at age sixteen. Her short-lived music career began with the single "Dream Rush" in 1989, and the next year she performed at the prestigious Kōhaku Uta Gassen television special. Miyazawa quickly rose to prominence as one of the top idols of the early Heisei period, attracting controversy for her 1991 nude photography book Santa Fe, which moved 1.5 million copies. Her personal struggles were further scrutinized, including a high-profile engagement to sumo wrestler Takanohana, a suicide attempt and battle with anorexia nervosa. By 1996, she went into hiatus and briefly resettled in San Diego. She took on a few television drama roles in the late 1990s, and returned to the big screen in the Taiwanese films The Cabbie (2000) and Peony Pavilion (2001). She co-starred in the highly-acclaimed 2002 film The Twilight Samurai, which marked a full-fledged comeback for Miyazawa and remains as her most recognizable role both domestically and internationally. She saw further success in The Face of Jizo and Tony Takitani (2004), and received several accolades for Pale Moon (2014) and Her Love Boils Bathwater (2016).