Mari Yamamoto

Mari Yamamoto

Born: February 4, 1986
in Tokyo, Japan
Mari Yamamoto is a Japanese actress and journalist.

Born in Japan, Yamamoto would move with her family to London in 1991, before eventually returning to live in Tokyo in 1994 at the age of 8. She described the experience as akin to being an outsider, where she'd be considered "very Japanese everywhere in the world" but "wasn’t quite Japanese enough" in Japan itself.

Yamamoto would study international relations at the International Christian University in Tokyo, where she would obtain her Bachelor of Arts, before moving to New York City to study method acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. During this time she was also part of The Bats acting company at The Flea Theater. She returned to Tokyo following this, and began working in journalism, writing articles for The Daily Beast alongside American journalist Jake Adelstein. Adelstein's book Tokyo Vice was being adapted into a television series for HBO Max, which would see Yamamoto recruited to work on the show's writing staff. She would become a producer on the series in its second season.

In 2022, Yamamoto starred in a recurring role in the Apple TV+ series Pachinko as Hana. That same year she would join the cast of Apple's Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. In March 2024, she was cast to star opposite Brendan Fraser in the film Rental Family.

Movies for Mari Yamamoto...

Title: Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
Character: Keiko Randa
Released: November 16, 2023
Type: TV
After surviving Godzilla's attack on San Francisco, Cate is shaken yet again by a shocking secret. Amid monstrous threats, she embarks on a globetrotting adventure to learn the truth about her family—and the mysterious organization known as Monarch.
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Story Game
Title: Story Game
Character: Oiwa
Released: November 5, 2022
Type: Movie
Who can tell the scariest story? Three friends try to out wit each other on a camping trip in Hawaii. But only one can win The Story Game.
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Title: Pachinko
Character: Hana
Released: March 24, 2022
Type: TV
Follow the hopes and dreams of four generations of a Korean immigrant family beginning with a forbidden love and crescendos into a sweeping saga that journeys between Korea, Japan and America to tell the unforgettable story of war and peace, love and loss, triumph and reckoning.
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Kate
Title: Kate
Character: Kanako
Released: September 10, 2021
Type: Movie
A ruthless criminal operative has less than 24 hours to exact revenge on her enemies and in the process forms an unexpected bond with the daughter of one of her past victims.
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Not to Be Unpleasant But We Need To Have a Serious Talk
Title: Not to Be Unpleasant But We Need To Have a Serious Talk
Character: Yuki
Released: July 15, 2021
Type: Movie
Womanizer Aris finds out he is a carrier of a sexually transmitted virus, lethal only for women. But he is also the only hope for a curing vaccine if he finds which one of his ex girlfriends had the first viral strain.
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Surfer's Paradise
Title: Surfer's Paradise
Released: April 3, 2019
Type: Movie
A human invited to live in the company of AI struggles between divided loyalties.
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Coin Lunch
Title: Coin Lunch
Character: Aki
Released: August 12, 2018
Type: Movie
Jeff is a salaryman trying to fit into the hierarchy of the japanese workplace. But when his wife cuts his daily budget, jeff’s life begins a downward spiral, leaving him to choose what he needs more: his job or his family.
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Jimami Tofu
Title: Jimami Tofu
Character: Yuki
Released: March 28, 2018
Type: Movie
A Chinese Singaporean chef, formerly working in Tokyo, finds himself in Okinawa begging a disgruntled old chef to teach him traditional Okinawan food. A top Japanese food critic finds herself in Singapore on an eye opening discovery of Southeast Asian cuisine. In reality both are looking for each other after an emotional breakup years ago. Emotionally crippled by their breakup he searches her home-town for her but discovers instead the art of traditional Okinawan food. Through it he learns the incredible balance of two cultures: Chinese and Japanese - a balance they never had in their relationship. When she suddenly appears in Okinawa looking to find closure he cooks and serves her their final meal. Through it she discovers what she had been yearning for all these years.
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The Last Dream
Title: The Last Dream
Released: May 17, 2017
Type: Movie
In a future where people have lost the ability to dream, a company has made a business out of recycling precious fantasies of the few that can still produce them. A model employee, Khalil, is one of the top performers until one day, his dreams are no longer to the liking of the company.
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Bourek
Title: Bourek
Character: Fujiko
Released: April 29, 2016
Type: Movie
In this humanistic comedy, set against the backdrop of economic crises and bad news, an extravagant international cast of characters meet, fight, and fall in love, while hiding from the end of the world and other calamities on the tiny Greek island of Khronos.
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Rental Family
Title: Rental Family
Released: December 31, 1969
Type: Movie
A down-and-out actor living in Tokyo is hired as a token American guy for a Japanese rental-family company, leading him on an unexpected journey of self-discovery through the roles he plays in other people’s lives.