“It’s so emotional when Anna and the King dance together”

Best-known for his film roles in The Last Samurai and Inception, Japanese actor KeN WataNaBe, 58, made his Broadway debut in The King and I in 2015 and received his first tony nomination the same year. he is married to Kaho Minami and has three children. our director bart [sher] tricked me when he offered me this role. He said, “i don’t need a singer, i don’t need a good dancer, i just need a king” – that definitely wasn’t true! learning all the songs and dances has been a challenge and i still don’t think i’m the best singer, but i hope i manage to pull it off.

one of the things bart said to me was that he wanted to do something different with this production – he’s definitely achieved that. He wanted to bring it into the 21st century, so he looks at the real politics of it and the things that still affect people all over the world today – the education of women and what it’s like to have extremely traditional cultures living inside modern cultures.

My favourite moment is when anna and the king perform Shall We Dance?. it’s such an emotional scene – all the time they’re dancing together, the king is subtly expressing this feeling of love he has for anna, and he makes the slightest gesture to show it by touching her cheek. it’s a beautiful piece to perform.

kelli is the most brilliant teammate – we have a real friendship now. For much of the show, our characters are having a kind of battle between two worlds – their views of what is right and wrong are so different – and that’s a lot of fun to play out.