Taishi Gotanda

About Taishi Gotanda

Taishi Gotanda is a blunt, award-winning film director who first cast the young Aqua and never forgot him. He becomes Aqua's mentor in the industry, teaching him how films really get made while sensing the darkness driving the boy. Years later, Gotanda takes on the boldest project of his career: directing the film that will tell Ai Hoshino's true story.

Appearance

Gotanda is a middle-aged film director with a scruffy, practical look, casual jackets, tired eyes and the air of a man who has argued with every producer in Japan and won about half the time. He carries himself without any glamour, which is the point: Gotanda looks like a craftsman, not a celebrity. On set he is blunt and exact; off set he is dry, funny and permanently unimpressed by the industry's vanities.

Personality

Gotanda is blunt, pragmatic and perceptive. He has no illusions about the entertainment industry, he knows its cruelties are structural, not personal, but he has kept a craftsman's integrity inside it. With Aqua he is one of the few adults who neither uses the boy nor pities him: he teaches him, argues with him and worries about him in roughly equal measure.

Background & Story

Gotanda is an award-winning director who cast the young Aqua in a film when Aqua was a small child, and never forgot the unnervingly mature boy. Years later their paths cross again, and Gotanda becomes Aqua's mentor inside the industry, teaching him how films really get made, who really holds power, and sensing, with a director's eye, the darkness driving his young actor. Eventually Gotanda takes on the boldest project of his career: directing the film that will tell Ai Hoshino's true story, with the twins' generation at its centre.

Key Relationships

• Aqua Hoshino: The child actor he never forgot, now his protégé, Gotanda teaches him the industry's real workings and watches his darkness with concern.
• Ai Hoshino: The idol whose true story Gotanda eventually agrees to tell on film.

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