Rinko Kikuchi was born in 1981 in Kanagawa. He debuted in the film Will to Live (1999) by Kaneto Shindo. His role of a deaf girl in a high school in Babel (2006) by Alejandro González Iñárritu, earned him worldwide acclaim and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, the first ever for a Japanese. In addition was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Golden Globes, at the Actors Guild Award, and Vogue magazine named her Woman of the Year 2006.
Since then, Kikuchi has worked c on di rect ac t pray pray and worldwide. Map of the Sounds of Tokyo (2009), Isabel Coixet, The Brothers Bloom (2008) with Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel Weisz, and Shanghai (2010), with director Mikael Hafstrom, are some of the best known. Also put your voice in The sky crawlers, animated film by Mamoru Oshii, 2008 which was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
