Nae Yūki (裕木 奈江, Yūki Nae, born 1970) is a Japanese actress, singer and ex-idol.[1][2][a] She worked in Japan in the 1990s before moving to the United States of America in the 2000s.[1][2]
Early Carrier
Yuuki was born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1970.[2] Raised by her grandmother, she was taught to be independent and not rely on men.[4] She made her debut in showbiz with a minor role in a 1988 film.[1] She gained immense popularity in the early 1990s through her appearances in television dramas, television commercials and radio.[1] For about a year from 1992, she hosted two hours of the late-night Nippon Broadcasting System's radio program All Night Nippon.[5] In the 1990s, she was active as a so-called "idol" and produced eight albums containing idol songs.[2]
In 1992, Yuuki played one of the main characters in one episode of the long-running television drama series From the Northern Country (Kita no Kuni kara).[1] In 1993, she played the lead role in the NTV TV drama seriesPocket Bell Doesn't Ring (Pokeberu ga Naranakute).[1][6] Some say that her popularity has increased by appearing in these dramas,[6] but in reality she has also received a lot of emotional criticism.[2][4] She was the victim of childish bashing from writers for women's magazines.[2][4] NHK's profile of her merely states that these two works have "attracted great attention" to her.[1] The "pocket bell" (pager device) which was used in the latter drama was also a device that attracted a great deal of attention in Japanese society at the time.[7] The latter drama depicted the process by which a middle-aged businessman begins to "repurpose" a pager, originally intended for business use, for social purposes, guided by a young woman played by Nae Yuuki.[7]
Moving to Hollywood
In the late 1990s, it came to be said that Yuuki had "disappeared from Japanese television."[6] In 2001, she played one of the main roles in the film Rain of Light directed by Banmei Takahashi.[8]Rain of Light is a film that depicts the real-life incident of the United Red Army Incident of 1972 through a film within a film.[8] The role Yuuki played was that of an actress who played a character based on a revolutionary Hiroko Nagata who killed many of her comrades.[8][9]
In 2004, Yuuki studied abroad in Greece as part of a training program run by the Agency for Cultural Affairs.[1][4] Taking an starting point by this, in 2005 she moved her base of operations to Los Angeles, USA.[1][4] She has appeared in films such as David Lynch's Inland Empire and Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima.[1][6] In 2017, she appeared in another Lynch film: the TV drama series Twin Peaks: The Return, which is set 25 years after the hit TV series Twin Peaks from the early 1990s.[1] Yuuki plays Naido, who first appears in episode 3.[10] This character's eyes are covered with special makeup.[9][10][11] Because special makeup was required, she had to arrive on set earlier than the other actors.[9][10][11] A fan of Twin Peaks, she had wanted to meet Agent Cooper, but was never able to do so because she was blinded by special makeup.[11] When she saw Kyle MacLachlan for the first time without the makeup, he was in his role as Bad Cooper.[11]
Note
^She herself has chosen to spell her name in the Latin alphabet with Nae Yuuki.[3]
