33-year-old Kabuki actor Onoe Ukon appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) on March 19th, where he spoke about what inspired him to pursue Kabuki and his aspirations.
He was born into the family of Kiyomoto, the traditional Kabuki musical accompaniment. His paternal great-grandfather was the sixth generation Onoe Kikugoro, and his maternal grandfather was the movie star Tsuruta Koji. He describes his family as being full of famous people, saying it's like a "scramble crossing" of ancestors. When he was three years old, he saw a video of the sixth generation Kikugoro performing "Kagami-jishi" (Mirror Lion) directed by Yasujiro Ozu at his grandmother's (the sixth generation Kikugoro's daughter) house.
That was the trigger that made him want to "do" Kabuki. "I longed for Kabuki like a child who admired Superman. Thanks to many adults, I was able to pursue the path of an actor, and I was entrusted with the care of my master, the seventh generation Onoe Kikugoro," he recalls.
After achieving his dream of becoming a Kabuki actor, he experienced burnout for a while. "I had lived my life to achieve my dream, so I hadn't thought about what to do afterward. I didn't know what to do," he says, describing his state of mind at the time.
He said that through putting on his own performances and tackling the roles he was given, "it took time, but I gradually came to understand that dedicating myself to Kabuki is the core of my life."
