Mimi wo Sumaseba/ Whisper of the Heart - Producer Asami Nishi about Tori Matsuzaka

 What made you decide to cast Tori Matsuzaka as Seiji? 

I had worked with him in Inemuri Iwane (2019), and I thought he was a really nice guy, and his softness and good-naturedness were just like Seiji's. He was the first person that came to mind, and I was sure that girls who liked Seiji would not be disappointed if they saw him as different from their image of him. 

What do you mean by "a good person"? 

There was a time in a previous film we worked on together when cooperation on the set was not going well. I was wondering what to do about it, but Matsuzaka-san noticed and organized a dinner party. He said, "Why don't we do it? You can tell them it was organized by me." He is always looking at the people around him with a calm eye, and he always takes action after knowing what he needs to do. And he does so in a casual manner, without giving off any sense of "wow" factor. That is what makes him Seiji-kun. Seiji may seem a little mean and oblique, but he is actually very kind. I thought it was wonderful that he did not pretend to be kind.

He also practiced a lot on the cello, didn't he? 

No matter how much you practice, you can never reach the level of a professional in instrumental scenes, so it is difficult to know what level to ask of the actors. There were some actors who said, "I can't do it," but Matsuzaka-san came to me earnestly asking, "How much should I do?". He was very serious and stoic. I later learned that he had been working on "In Those Days" (2021) until just before the film was shot, and that it was also quite difficult for him to play the bass guitar there. Moreover, we had to rearrange our schedule due to covid, so we spent several days at the end of the film shooting "Wandering" (2022) and "Whisper of the Heart" at the same time. It must have been very difficult to switch between the two. I am very grateful for that. I was thinking that this is the first time a straightforward love story like this has been shown in a movie since "Kyo Koi wo Hajimemasu" (2012). I hope that his fans will also enjoy the film.