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Actor

1957-07-17 · Tokyo, Japan · Female

9 series in the catalog

Shinobu Otake (大竹 しのぶ, Ōtake Shinobu; born July 17, 1957) is a Japanese actress. She has won three Japanese Academy Awards: the 2000 Best Actress award for Railroad Man, and the 1979 awards for both Best Actress for The Incident, and Best Supporting Actress for Seishoku no ishibumi. She also won the award for best actress at the 12th Hochi Film Award for Eien no 1/2. At the 25th Moscow International Film Festival she won the award for Best Actress for her role in Owl. She has received a total of twelve nominations.

She was the favoured lead actress of director Kaneto Shindo after his previous lead actress, Nobuko Otowa, died in 1994, and featured in four of his films from Will to Live (1999) and Postcard (2011).

Otake has also acted on the stage. She performed during the last segment of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Closing Ceremony along Tokyo’s Suginami Children Chorus, singing the song "Hoshimeguri no Uta" (Star Tour Song) composed by Kenji Miyazawa, as the Olympic flame was extinguished. Otake had a leading role of Dr. Ruth Wolff in a Japanese stage adaptation of The Doctor (2021).

Personal life

Otake was born and grew up mostly in Tokyo. In 1982 she married Seiji Hattori, a Tokyo Broadcasting director who died in 1987. One year later, Otake married Akashiya Sanma, but got divorced in 1992. In the early 1990s Otake lived with playwright Hideki Noda.

Otake has two children, Nichika, a son by Hattori and Imaru, a daughter by Sanma. After her divorce she kept custody.

Live-action

Cats, Old Deuteronomy (Judi Dench)

West Side Story (1979 TBS edition), Maria (Natalie Wood)

Animation

Inside Out, Sadness

Inside Out 2, Sadness

Commercials

In 2012, she became a representative for NTT DoCoMo's "Raku-Raku Smartphone", a smartphone aimed at the over-55s.

Honours

Kinuyo Tanaka Award (1992)

Medal with Purple Ribbon (2011)