So guys, and girls, I’m a Yuu Aoi fan.
Many actors often get shoved into a singular role which they have difficulty both casting and acting out of. When I explain this idea to friends, I usually think Russell Crowe – can you see him in a non Gladiator-esque role? I mean, seriously. Or Tom Cruise, although I think he does it on purpose to inflate his already massive ego.
On the other hand, Yuu Aoi (蒼井優) managed to established herself as an acclaimed actress without clinging to a single stereotype. A short list of what she’s played:
- Refined schoolgirls, obviously (Alice)
- Unrefined mining girls (Kimiko)
- Military sergeants (Mami)
- Artists (Hagu)
- Erm, I guess a priestess of a sorts (Tanyuu)
That’s all I can think of for now. And now, in her latest movie she’ll be a slightly off-kilter resident of a psychiatric ward. (With cornrows. I still can’t get over that.) What’s the common link between these roles? Well, they’re female, and they’re deployed at a genius level by Aoi. Not much else.
I think what really causes her to shine is a mastery of the details of expression; Aoi is capable of minutely controlling her ranges of facial expression to limit it to the character she’s playing’s and the mood of the scene, or force a new one upon it. In other words, she’s very good at being expressive, and very good at being believable while gracefully shifting through a range of emotions. There’s a lot of things you can see her in where she doesn’t say anything on-camera, but still carries a very heavy and provocative presence simply because she knows all the right body language and facial movement to do so.
The real juxtaposition is how she acts in real life; self-describing herself as “shy,” she is always very reserved and talks softly in her interviews, so I wonder where she gets the ideas for her more extroverted characters. (Shoujo manga? That’d be cute.)
Oh and I mention she was cute yet? She used to sport a much “rounder” face in her younger days, which you can see sometimes in her older photos, but that’s sorta gone (baby fat, is it called?), with a more mature prettiness to replace it. It really is one of those faces that grows cuter as you look more. She also, although their physical features are different, her expressions remind me of someone I know, cough cough.
優ちゃんかわいい～！→
By the way, for my next “awesome person post,” I’ll do ZUN, which I actually feel a little more comfortable with because ZUN 1) isn’t cute, so the entry won’t be me gushing about ZUN that way and 2) I draw a lot, so I kinda understand the doujin artist concept. Sorta.
