"We speak to Japanese director Hikari about her film Rental Family, which follows the story of Phillip, an American actor living in Tokyo (Brendan Fraser) who is recruited by an agency to play stand-in roles for strangers. When the lines of real life begin to blur on assignments as a young girl's father and as a journalist profiling a retired actor on the brink of dementia, Phillip finds himself at a moral crossroads."
"Filming in Tokyo is always more challenging because the locations are much more condensed compared to where you'd shoot in London or America. You can't stop or block people in Japan while filming, unless you're paying for the whole area, and even then, 99 percent of the time you have to let people walk through. If someone says they're coming through in the middle of production, they're coming through. So the production side of things requires a lot of patience."
"Peaceful as Tokyo is, many people have a "don't fuck with my life" mindset-excuse my language, I'm Japanese! [ Laughs] Also, when you scout apartments, you have to knock on every single door in the building and ask to shoot there tomorrow, or next week. And if one person says no, that's a no. So we often had to visit five to six different locations knowing that someone would refuse."
Rental Family centers on Phillip, an American actor in Tokyo recruited by an agency to play stand-in roles for strangers. Role assignments include posing as a young girl's father and as a journalist profiling a retired actor on the brink of dementia, causing role and life to blur and forcing moral choices. Production faced dense-location challenges in Tokyo, where public access prevents blocking crowds and requires patience and backup locations. Apartment scouting demanded asking every neighbor for permission, and a single refusal could cancel a shoot. The director's move to the United States informed the film's themes of identity and belonging.
Read at Conde Nast Traveler
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