is a Japanese

actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

and

theatre director A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical theatre performance, etc. by unifying various endeavors a ...

. He is currently affiliated with

Horipro is a Japanese talent agent, talent agency that manages actors, entertainers and musicians, as well as commercial and television productions. It has locations in Nashville, Tennessee, Nashville and Los Angeles in the United States. History I ...

Biography

Yoshida spent six years in Osaka during his grade school days, and later grew up in

Hino, Tokyo file:KongojiFudodo20130815.jpg, 250px, Takahata Fudō in Hino is a Cities of Japan, city located in the western Tokyo, western portion of the Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 187,048, and a population density of 6 ...

. While a student at St. Paul High School, he saw the Shakespearean comedy "

Twelfth Night ''Twelfth Night, or What You Will'' is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601–1602 as a Twelfth Night entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The play centres on the twins Viola an ...

" by the Kumo Theater Company and decided to become an actor. While studying at the Department of German Literature in the Faculty of Literature at

Sophia University Sophia University (Japanese language, Japanese: 上智大学, ''Jōchi Daigaku''; Latin: ''Universitas Sedis Sapientiae'') is a private List of Jesuit educational institutions, Jesuit research university in Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1913 by ...

, he made his debut by performing Twelfth Night in the Shakespeare Study Group. He later dropped out of the same university. After working with the

Shiki Theatre Company is one of Japan's best-known and largest theatre companies. Shiki Theatre Company employs around 1,400 actors and staff, and stages more than 3,000 performances to around 3 million audience members a year. It operates seven theaters for their ex ...

for six months, he worked with Shakespeare Theatre, Lyming Theatre Company, and Tokyo Ichigumi before forming Performance Unit AUN with director Yoshihiro Kurita in 1997, which he also directed. He was valued as an actor capable of performing the roles required of foreign classics such as Shakespeare and Greek tragedies, and was a regular in

Yukio Ninagawa was a Japanese theatre director, actor and film director, particularly known for his Japanese language productions of the Greek tragedies as well as Shakespeare—he directed eight distinct renditions of ''Hamlet.'' Ninagawa was also emeritus of ...

's productions. He is a close friend of

Tatsuya Fujiwara is a Japanese actor. Internationally, he is best known for his leading roles as Shuya Nanahara in the '' Battle Royale'' films, Light Yagami in the ''Death Note'' films, Kaiji Itō in the ''Kaiji'' films, and Rikuhiko Yuki in Hideo Nakata's '' ...

and

Shun Oguri is a Japanese people, Japanese actor and Voice acting in Japan, voice actor, son of stage director Tetsuya Oguri, and the youngest of 3 siblings, including older brother Ryo, who is also an actor. He started in small roles as extra in the works ...

, who often appeared in Ninagawa's works. Starting in 2010, he expanded his activities into television dramas and films on the advice of Oguri. Yoshida played Hanzawa's boss in

Hanzawa Naoki is a 2013 and 2020 Japanese television series by Japanese broadcaster TBS based on the of novels by . It follows the story of Naoki Hanzawa, a banker working for the largest bank in Japan, Tokyo Chuo Bank. He faces numerous obstacles from upper ...

in 2013 and Densuke Kanō, who was modeled after businessman Den'emon Itō, in

Hanako to Anne is a Japanese television drama series, the 90th Asadora series broadcast on NHK. It debuted on March 31, 2014, and was broadcast Monday through Saturday mornings, ending on September 27, 2014. It is based on the novel ''An no Yurikago Muraoka Hana ...

in 2014. These performances attracted attention, which led to an increase in his appearances in films, his first starring role being in Tokyo Sentimental. He got married on January 1, 2016 (his fourth marriage, including one de facto marriage) and hosted a wedding in February 2017. In October 2016, he succeeded Yukio Ninagawa as the second artistic director of the ''Sai no Kuni Shakespeare Series''.

Filmography

Stage

Film

Television

Awards

References

External links

*
Kōtarō Yoshida on NHK Archives
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yoshida, Kotaro Japanese male film actors Japanese male stage actors Japanese male television actors Japanese male voice actors Japanese theatre directors 1959 births Living people Male actors from Tokyo Horipro artists 20th-century Japanese male actors 21st-century Japanese male actors