Photo/Illutration Satomi Ishihara (Photo by Toshiki Toyama)

Satomi Ishihara’s latest film “Missing” is bound to change the way audiences view her.

By 2017, she had grown tired of playing straightforward roles that simply required glamor.

“So I went straight to director Keisuke Yoshida and asked him to change me,” she said.

Ishihara, 37, recalled being struck by the way Go Morita transformed into an entirely different persona in Yoshida’s 2016 film “Himeanole” to play a serial killer.

She received the screenplay for “Missing” three years later.

“It had a lot of leeway and made me think and want to delve deeper,” she said. “I had always wanted to do a film like this. But all I could do at the time was imagine how a mother would feel.”

The actress married in 2020.

When she read the script again after giving birth, she was scared, feeling her heart would break if she were to play the protagonist, Saori, whose only daughter has been missing for three months.

But Ishihara is thankful to have been able to portray Saori, as she can now understand a mother’s feelings.

In the film, Ishihara gets strung out and vents her frustration on her caring husband (Munetaka Aoki). She portrays herself as a “tragic mother” to a TV reporter (Tomoya Nakamura).

Saori goes back and forth between despair and hope with each snippet of eyewitness information while battling abusive comments online as she waits to hear from the police.

Her hair turns brittle and her skin looks dull. Her lips become dried and cracked.

Still, her tears and heartache are overwhelming.

“If someone asks me, ‘What was your turning point?’ I’d say this film was it, no matter how many years go by,” Ishihara said.

Born in Tokyo in 1986, Ishihara made her acting debut in 2003 with “My Grandpa.”

She has starred in many films, including “Year One in the North,” “Shin Godzilla” and “And So the Baton Is Passed.”

“Missing” is currently showing nationwide.

Related News