Isomura Hayato Took a Role Friends Warned Him Off
Japanese actor Isomura Hayato took a part in "The Moon" even though people around him advised against it, Variety reported on 3 November 2026. His associates worried that the events behind the story were still too fresh and could damage his career.
"The Moon" is a drama by director Ishii Yuya. It is drawn from a real incident at a facility for people with disabilities. Isomura's performance later won him the Japan Academy Film Prize for best supporting actor.
Isomura launched his acting career in 2014. His credits include Netflix's "Alice in Borderland," the "Tokyo Revengers" franchise, Hayakawa Chie's "Plan 75" and Kishi Yoshiyuki's "(Ab)normal Desire."
Isomura is now the head of the Ethical Film Award jury at the Tokyo International Film Festival. The Tokyo festival, now in its 39th edition, runs through 4 November. Tokyo's organisers announced his role on 29 September 2026, according to the festival's own news page.
The award was launched in 2023 in partnership with Sumitomo Corporation, and it aims to raise awareness of social issues. Isomura sits on the jury with three students from the festival. The jury did not pick from a shortlist of its own. It inherited three films, an animation, a documentary and a realistic fiction feature, and had to choose one winner.
Final deliberations came down to two films. One was "Amadeo," a Brazilian animated feature set in 1830s Brazil. In it, a young African man invents photography before Europeans and uses it to help enslaved people win their freedom.
The prize went to "I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming," a drama by German director Isabelle Stever. The film deals with gender and is set against Russia's war in Ukraine.
For readers who follow film festivals, the Ethical Film Award is one of several prizes at Tokyo that look beyond craft and box office. For everyone else, the story is simpler: an actor was told a role might hurt him, took it anyway, and now sits on a jury that has to choose a film about the world's hard questions.
