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Ken Watanabe
'The Last Samurai'Although he'd be quick to admit that an Academy Award nomination was never in his sights, there's no denying Ken Watanabe holds many keys to Oscar glory: Star in a period epic or play a character enamored of literature, or, heck, upstage Tom Cruise, and a ticket to the show often follows.
While he does all that as ''The Last Samurai'''s blade-wielding feudal hero, Katsumoto, the 44-year-old Japanese actor also has a certain wild-card factor in his favor: eyebrows. Like past winners Jack Nicholson and Jennifer Connelly, he's blessed with that rare cluster of mesmerizing super-ocular follicles. And in his English-language debut, he steals attention by unsheathing a pointed stare that beckons while it threatens.
It's a dichotomy that roots the movie's vivid study of the violent clash between tradition and modernity in 19th-century Japan. ''He is the moral center of the piece,'' says director Edward Zwick, who cast Watanabe over more than 20 of the performer's countrymen. Adds Cruise: ''He imbued that spirit into Katsumoto. He's a brilliant actor.''
Watanabe, who sprang from contemporary Japanese theater to gain celebrity at home portraying historical swordsmen on TV, is making history as an Oscar-nominated Asian actor. He is the first since 1985, when ''The Karate Kid'''s Noriyuki ''Pat'' Morita and ''The Killing Fields''' Haing S. Ngor both garnered supporting-actor nods. In fact, fewer than 10 Asian performers have ever been nominated, and only three have won -- Ngor, half-Indian thesp Ben Kingsley (1982's ''Gandhi''), and supporting-actress winner Miyoshi Umeki (1957's ''Sayonara'').
Just don't expect the accolades from an Oscar nomination to go to Watanabe's head. Is the spiritual, soft-spoken star at all interested in American fame? ''No,'' he says, with typical succinctness.
But those perpetually arched eyebrows leave you wondering whether he really means it.
