is a Japanese actress under Toho Entertainment. She has performed in many famous movies and television dramas including Crying out Love, In the Center of the World, Dragon Zakura and Proposal Daisakusen. She graduated from Horikoshi High School in 2006. She is also known as "Ma-chan" or as Yamashita Tomohisa calls her "Maa-tan". On her radio show, she introduces herself as "Gasawa," a nckname chosen by fans. She is the daughter of Kazuaki Nagasawa, the former manager of the J. League team Júbilo Iwata; she was born on the season when they won their first league championship.
Biography
Nagasawa graduated from Horikoshi High School, which is famous due
to notable performers like
Ayumi
Hamasaki,
Ayase Haruka,
Aya Ueto,
Jun
Matsumoto,
Tomohisa Yamashita
and
Tanaka Koki having studied
there.
Career
In 2000, she auditioned in the
5th (Year 2000) Toho "Cinderella" Contest at the age of 12, and
emerged as the youngest winner ever out of a total contestant pool
of 35,153 individuals. This marked the beginning of her career in
the entertainment industry. She made her debut in the movie,
Crossfire, released in the same
year. In the following year, she appear to have commented, "I did
wonder if it's true that becoming a "Cinderella" mean that I will
immediately become a famous actress". Afterwards, she became a
professional model for the popular teen magazine,
Peach Lemon.
In 2002, her appearance in the
Nabisco CM
earned her the title of "The Pretty Girl from the Nabisco CM" in
magazines and TV shows, as her name was not yet well-known at the
time.
In 2003, she had her very first leading role in the movie,
Robokon. This is a movie about a
high school girl who reluctantly participates in the
National
Robot Contest for High School Students. Masami was awarded the
Best Newcomer prize in the
27th Japanese Academy Awards for her
excellent performance in this movie. Later, she commented that it
was this movie that first brought out her acting skills, and that
it remains one of her favourite works to this day.
She co-starred with
Chihiro Otsuka,
the
Judges' Special Award winner from the
5th Toho
"Cinderella" Contest, in the 27th movie of the
Godzilla Series,
Godzilla: Tokyo SOS in 2003 and the
last movie of the series
Godzilla: Final Wars in 2004. The
two actresses also sang the track,
The Song of Mothra,
which was later released as part of the
Godzilla: Tokyo SOS sound track
CD.
In 2004, Masami starred as the heroine of the story, a teenage girl
who died of leukemia, in the big hit movie,
Crying Out Love, In
the Center of the World. The movie was a box office hit in
Japan, earning 8.5 billion Yen in total. It was in this movie that
she decided to shave off all her hair to accommodate her role as a
leukemia patient. Her outstanding performance in this movie gave
her recognition as an actress and earned her numerous awards
including the
Best Supporting Actress Prize (the youngest
ever) in the
28th Japanese
Academy Awards. She would then be nominated for Best
Actress at the "30th
Japanese
Academy Awards" for her performance in "
Nada Sousou".
Since then, she has also starred in other movies and has also been
actively involved in dramas and other TV shows. In 2005, she
starred as a student along with several others in the all popular
high school inspiration drama,
Dragon
Zakura.
Then in 2006, she starred as a female ninja
in her first NHK
Taiga Drama,
Komyo ga Tsuji, which was
immediately followed by her appearance as the female protagonist in
the drama remake of the 1981 big hit movie, Sailor Fuku to Kikanjuu
(starring Hiroko
Yakushimaru). Her first single was subsequently released
under the name
Hoshi Izumi, the name of the female
protagonist from Sailor Fuku to Kikanjuu.
In April 2007, she co-starred with
Tomohisa Yamashita for the second time in
the fantasy love comedy,
Proposal Daisakusen (first time was
in
Dragon Zakura). The show
enjoyed high ratings and the cast also swept the Nikkan Sports
Drama Grand Prix Awards for Spring of 2007, winning in all 5
categories: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best
Supporting Actress and Best Drama.
She also
spent nearly one month in India
filming for
her latest SP drama, Butterfly Stroke in Ganges
River, based on Takano Teruko's original travel
biography.
A special episode of
Proposal
Daisakusen was announced for spring of 2008. The vague
ending caused viewers to ask for the rest of the story and so a
two-hour special began filming in late January 2008. The story
continues where the last episode left off and will feature the
wedding ceremony of their friends in Hawaii. It aired on March 25,
2008 and featured a kiss scene between
Tomohisa Yamashita and her.
In April 2008, she starred in the Fuji TV drama, "
Last Friends" with
Juri
Ueno,
Eita and
Ryo
Nishikido. The shows deals with issues like domestic violence
and sexual identity. It aired on Thursday at 10:00 pm and enjoyed
high viewership ratings with a special episode aired a week after
the last episode, titled, "Mou Hitotsu no Last Friends."
She starred in the remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1958 film "
The Hidden Fortress" with
Jun Matsumoto and
Abe
Hiroshi. She played the role of the princess and it was
released in theaters on May 10, 2008.
In June 2008, it was announced that she will play one of the major
characters in the 2009
NHK Taiga
drama, "
Tenchijin". The lead is played
by "
Nada Sousou" co-star,
Satoshi Tsumabuki. It started airing in
January 2009.
She was also cast as the lead in the first episode of the drama
special, "
Fujiko
F. Fujio no
Parallel Space." The episode, "Nebumi Camera" aired on October
31, 2008 at midnight on
WOWOW channel.
She was chosen to star in a move called "
Gunjo," based on a novel by Ayako Miyagi and directed
by
Yosuke Nakagawa. It is the second
Japanese movie produced by 20th Century Fox. Filming finished on
August 5, 2008 and includes her first actual love scene. It will be
released in Spring 2009, although Fox aims to have it premier at
the
Berlin
International Film Festival in February.
The popular drama series, "
Galileo" aired a
special episode that included her in the cast where she played a
student lab assistant. Entitled,
"Galileo:
Episode Zero," it aired the same day as the flm was released and
received a rating of 20.8% In another drama special, "[[Souka, Mou
Kimi wa Inai no Ka," she played the young version of Saburo
Shiroyama's wife.
It aired on January 12, 2009 on TBS
She and
Odagiri Joe starred in the TBS
drama, "Boku no
Imoto". They played siblings.
On October 20, 2009, Nagasawa will start in a movie titled,
"
Magare! Spoon" (English title: "Go Find a Psychic!").
It will premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival. In the
film, she plays a clumsy assistant director of a TV show about the
paranormal, unaware that the cafe she is stranded at on Christmas
Eve is the location for an annual gathering of men with psychic
powers.
To
celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2010, Fuji TV
announced a
major television drama special entitled "Wagaya no Rekishi."
The story takes place between 1945 and 1964, chronicling the lives
of the seven members of the fictional Yame family. Nagasawa is
among the cast members. The drama will air on three consecutive
nights during spring 2010.
Popularity
For three consecutive years since 2005, she has been the cover girl
for
Toho Calendar, which has a history of over 50
years.
In March 2006, she was voted the
Most Popular Actress in
Oricon Style. According to the movie
magazine
Kinema Junpo, Nagasawa is also
said to be one of the "top amongst young female movie
actresses".
In Summer 2007, Masami was ranked 9th in 2007 Most Influential
People In Japan and was the only female in the ranking. The order
is as follow:
Kimura Takuya,
Kitano Takeshi,
Suzuki Ichiro,
Matsui
Hideki,
Mino Monta,
Akashiya Sanma,
Katori Shingo,
Matsuzaka Daisuke,
Nagasawa
Masami,
Nakai Masahiro,
according to magazine
Flash.
She currently is ranked as one of the top celebrities for CMs,
being the spokesperson for several products.
She regularly appears in
Oricon
rankings.
Oricon: Wonderful Smiles (2009)- placed 5th
Oricon: who do you want as your lover? (2007 and 2008)- placed
2nd
Oricon: best-looking in yukata(2008)- placed 3rd
Oricon: who would you want as a child?(2008)- placed 3rd
Oricon: Golden Week dates (2008)- placed 1st
Oricon: Golden Week surveys (2008)- placed 3rd
Oricon: fast food smile (2008)- placed 8th
Oricon: women's spring styles (2008)- placed 2nd
Oricon: cherry blossom beauty (2008)- placed 10th
Oricon: adventure with a celebrity (2008)- placed 3rd
Oricon: ideal girlfriend (2008)- placed 2nd
Oricon: who do you want as a receptionist? (2008)- placed 2nd
Oricon: who would you want nursing you? (2007)- placed 1st
Oricon: who do you want as your girlfriend? (2007)- placed
2nd
Oricon: wonderful voices (2007)- placed 5th
Oricon: the true "hataraki man" (2007)- placed 5th
Oricon: Kohaku hosts (2007)- placed 2nd
Oricon: best face (2007)- placed 4th
Oricon: nice teeth (2007)- placed 5th (although she won Best Smile
of the Year award)
Oricon: who do you want to make your bento? (2007)- placed
1st
Oricon: which celebrity would you want to be? (2007)- placed
5th
Oricon: fall hairstyles (2007)- placed 3rd
Oricon: Tanabata survey (2007)- placed 1st
Oricon: the new "hime sexy" trend (2007) - placed 5th
Oricon: summer hairstyles (2007)- placed 4th
Oricon: hanabi dates (2007)- placed 2nd
Oricon: Fresh Star Ranking (2007)- placed 1st
Oricon: who do you want to wake you up? (2007)- places 1st
Oricon: choose your secretary (2007)- placed 4th
Oricon: who do you want to marry? (2007)- placed 1st
Movies
- Cross Fire (2000, Toho)
- Nagori yuki (2001, Daiei)
- Yomigaeri (2003, Toho)
- Godzilla: Tokyo SOS
(2003, Toho)
- Robokon(Robot contest) (2003, Toho)
- Ashura no Gotoku
(2003, Toho)
- Crying Out Love, In the Center
of the World (2004, Toho)
- Shinkokyu no
Hitsuyou (2004, Shochiku)
- Godzilla: Final
Wars (2004, Toho)
- Touch (2005, Toho)
- Rough (2006, Toho)
- Nada Sousou (Tears for
You) (2006, Toho)
- Sono toki wa kare
ni yoroshiku (2007, Toho)
- Kakushi Toride
no San-Akunin: The Last Princess (2008, Toho)
- Detroit Metal City
(2008)(voice over)
- La Maison En Petits
Cubes (2008)(narration)
- Gunjo (2009)
- Magare! Spoon (Find me a Psychic!) (2009)
Television dramas
- Pure Soul (2001, Yomiuri TV)
- Sakura (2002,
NHK
)
- Hontoni Atta Kowai Hanashi - Ushiro no
Onna (2004, Fuji
TV
)
- Satsujin sutanto (TV Asahi Saturday drama
special) (2004, Asahi
TV
)
- Toubousha
(2004, TBS
)
- Yasashii
Jikan (2005, Fuji
TV
)
- Dragon
Zakura (2005, TBS
)
- Hiroshima Showa 20 nen 8
Gatsu Muika (2005, TBS
)
- Komyo ga
Tsuji (2006, NHK
)
- Sailor Fuku to Kikanjuu (2006,
TBS
)
- Akechi
Mitsuhide (2007, Fuji
TV
)
- Mama ga Ryori wo Tsukuru
Wake (guest) (2007, Fuji TV
)
- Shakespeare Drama Special - Romeo and Juliet (2007, Nippon TV
)
- Proposal
Daisakusen (2007, Fuji TV
)
- Butterfly Stroke in Ganges
River (2007, Asahi
TV
)
- Hatachi no
Koibito (2007, TBS
)
- Proposal
Daisakusen SP (2008, Fuji TV
)
- Last
Friends (2008, Fuji
TV
)
- Galileo: Episode Zero (2008,
Fuji
TV
)
- Fujiko
F. Fujio no
Parallel Space Nebumi Camera' (2008, WOWOW)
- Tenchijin
(2009, NHK
)
- Soka, Mo Kimi wa Inai no Ka
(2009, TBS
)
- Boku no
Imouto (2009, TBS
)
- Wagaya no
Rekishi (2010, Fuji
TV
)
Radio
- Nagasawa Masami All Night Nippon R (NBS,
February 18, 2005)
- Nagasawa Masami All Night Nippon R (NBS,
October 16, 2006)
- Nagasawa Masami (Title: Undecided), All Night
Nippon, (NBS, April 8, 2007 ~ present)
Endorsements
Other
PV
WEB
CD
Singles
Awards
- (2003) 8th Nifty Movie Awards (aka Nihon Internet Movie
Award):'Best Newcomer'(Actor Field) Prize in
Robokon&Yomigaeri.
- (2004) 25th Yokohama Movie Awards:'Best Newcomer' Prize in
Robokon&Ashura no Gotoku.
- (2004) 27th Japanese Academy
Awards:'Best Newcomer' Prize in Robokon.
- (2004) 17th Nikkan Sports Movie
Awards:'Best Newcomer' Prize in Crying Out Love, In the Center of the
World.
- (2004) Hochi Film Awards 'Best Supporting Actress' Prize in
Crying Out Love, In the Center of the World.
- (2004) 1st Platinum Film Actress Award in Crying Out Love,
In the Center of the World.
- (2005) 47th Blue Ribbon Awards:'Best Supporting Actress' Prize
in Crying Out Love, In the Center of the World.
- (2005) 29th Élan d'or Awards:'Best Newcomer' Prize in
Crying Out Love, In the Center of the World.
- (2005) 28th Japanese Academy
Awards:'Best Supporting Actress' Prize in Crying Out Love,
In the Center of the World.
- (2005) 28th Japanese Academy
Awards:'Most Popular Performer' Prize for Crying Out Love,
In the Center of the World.
- (2006)Vogue Nippon Women of the Year
- (2007) 18th Nihon Jewelry Best Dresser Age Under 20
- (2007) 30th Japanese Academy
Awards:nominated as the 'Best Actress' in Nada
sousou
- (2007) 4th Cotton USA Award in Japan
- (2007) In June, she was announced as the "Woman Most Men Want
To Marry". This was a survey done by Oricon and was released under
the title "June Brides".
- (2007) For the Award Most Influential People In Japan, Masami
ranks 9th as the only female among its Top 10.
- (2007) November 8, the Japan Dental Association announced
Masami as one of its 2007 Best Smile of the Year awards
recipient.
- (2007) Nikkan Sports Drama Grand Prix (Spring) - Best Actress
for Proposal Daisakusen.
- (2008) Video Research Ltd. TV commercial data for 2007 revealed
that for the Kanzai region of Japan, Masami overtook Yukie Nakama to be "CM Queen" by just a couple
hours. In Nagoya, Masami took the 2nd place.
References
External links