ORICON.CO.JP: GACKT (46) on his high school student character at the Film Awards, "I wonder what on earth I was doing"

GACKT attended the 44th Hochi Film Award held in Tokyo on the 18th where the movie Tonde Saitama (Fly Me To The Saitama) won the Special Award. GACKT, who played the role of a high school student in this movie, revealed, “When they spoke to me about it, I declined (the role) in the very beginning.” Then, he followed with his reason behind accepting the role, saying, “I’m a big fan of (the author of the original work) Maya Mineo, and since he was the one who nominated me, I couldn’t say no.”

GACKT also lamented, “In the beginning, I thought, ‘What on earth are they saying?’. Even when I watched the movie Battle Royale and say Yamamoto Taro playing a high school student when he was around thirty or his late twenties, I thought, ‘What on earth is he doing?’. And now, even though I’m 46, I wonder, ‘What on earth am I doing?’”

Despite that, he felt proud of it. “I’d think that none of us involved in this ever thought that we’d produce such a result. Instead, we wondered if we’d end up turning Saitama into our enemies. But by the abilities of director Takeuchi Hideki and the many wonderful actors, this has become a wonderful piece of work.”

Director Takeuchi said, “Saitama Prefecture also got a distinguished service award for getting dissed. We would like to continue contributing to Saitama’s development going in future too.” Mr. Maya, who presented a bouquet to both of them also laughed as he said, “I don’t know where or what about it makes it special. The vagueness of this is very Tonde Saitama-like.”