Q: Can you tell me a little about your role in "The Last Samurai?"

A: I play the young samurai Nobutada who befriends captured American soldier, played by Tom Cruise. My father, the leader samurai, advises me to teach Tom's character in the Japanese way ¨C Japanese culture and Japanese language.

Q: Your character's also an expert with bow and arrows. Did you train or were you already familiar with archery?

A: I had to spend most of my time training Japanese archery and horseback riding since the movie was starting. I even paid to practice on my days off (laughing).

Q: How difficult was it to learn the bow?

A: Japanese archery is not actually a sport. Martial arts, it is kind of like mediation. So you had to learn mentally and it took me awhile to understand Japanese archery itself.

Q: What do you think about the way the samurai lifestyle is portrayed?

A: This is THE movie where you can learn about samurai (laughing).

Q: You had a lot of action in this movie. What was the most difficult stunt for
you to do?

A: I had to shoot the arrows on horseback. It takes usually 10 years to do that. I had to it for seven months to learn it. I killed myself learning [so as] not to be embarrassed to show Japanese people, respectfully.