Alternate Best Supporting Actor 2021: Masaki Okada in Drive My Car

Masaki Okada did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Kōji Takatsuki in Drive My Car. 

Drive My Car follows theater actor/director Yūsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) as he deals with the untimely death of his wife while putting on a multilingual production of Uncle Vanya. This situation is complicated by the fact that just before his wife's death he had walked in on her having sex with another man. The other man being Masaki Okada's Kōji Takatsuki, a man who appears initially in the film in an innocuous enough way, as an up and coming television actor. Okada's performance emphasizing in this first scene a naivety, and really an over eagerness to please and be pleasing towards Kafuku and his wife. Okada is just purely respectful to the point, if one were Kafuku they probably wouldn't think much about him. Okada is seen having sex with Kafuku's wife before we don't see him again, until he appears to audition for Kafuku's production of Vanya. The first bit of greatness in Okada's performance is quickly seen just through his entirely different presence of the man we see after a passage of time and in a new setting. Okada exudes just now this pompous confidence of a young man who was at the top of his field, and just throws around the sense of celebrity through his every pour. Even the way he walks into the audition room now the man spreads his body around in his gait, as someone who wants everyone to see him, not that more internalized respectful young man of before. 

Okada's Takatsuki arrives auditioning for the role of Dr. Astrov, who within the scheme of that play is basically the most cunning and confident man, who many of the women within the play desire. Okada's audition is a great bit of acting from Okada by portraying Takatsuki's way of performing the role of Dr. Astrov. Okada portrays Dr. Astrov npot as someone who intrigues others into his presence, rather he is an intensely aggressively sort, if not, really breaking the appropriate bounds of even the audition space as he invades his scene partner's physical space multiple times. Okada presenting Dr. Astrov as this forceful man, not far from forcing himself upon her. Although it is within the play itself that Astrov takes his liberties, Okada portrayal shows Takatsuki going much further than that in the level of intensity he brings to it, and really this sort of callousness. Okada presents nothing in his Astrov as really listening to the woman, rather showing in his version a man looking for his own pleasure first and foremost. Kafuku ends up casting him in the play, and though ambiguous, as almost this kind of revenge by instead of casting him as the most desired man in the play, Astrov, he casts him a the least desired man, the titular Uncle Vanya. Although perhaps it is just some wise casting on Kafuku's part, as the one thing Vanya is, is a bit of a sexual aggressor even when feelings are mutual, as was the way Okada as Takatsuki played Astrov. 

Takatsuki reveals he was intentional in seeking out Kafuku, and also it is revealed his state of exile from some unspecified charge likely related to his aggressive sexual manner. Okada's performance is fascinating in this scene because he plays with the idea of the ambiguity of the character, while also being very direct. Okada speaks without shame towards the character's sexual aggression, showing a man really without personal hesitation towards exploiting his position or celebrity. When Takatsuki praises Kafuku's wife, the woman he had an affair with, there is this pestering quality about Okada's performance, a kind of undercurrent of this strange sort of sadism in his praising even as so many words are about his respect towards the older actor. This scene ends up being interrupted by someone taking Takatsuki's picture who he quickly confronts over the action. Okada in the moment perhaps revealing the bluntest form of the man behind the seeming confidence with this more directly sinister intensity as he demands answers from the person and an ease towards violence seems evident in the man. What Takatsuki remains is this enigma however, and perhaps Kafuku's choice to keep around is to try to solve his mystery, and what Okada excels with is basically creating clues within a man who perhaps most frequently is a liar though the most pain he can inflict is by telling the truth. 

A long sequence then becomes the revelation of Takatsuki as Kafuku and he spend a long night together talking to one another. Where in some ways we see a meeker Takatsuki as his aggressive approach of confidence seems ill fitting for Vanya, and Takatsuki seems ill fitting within the production. Okada portrays, when speaking about the production, this almost kind of castration within his work as Takatsuki struggles to brandish himself, which is his usual technique, as Kafuku does appear to school him on the power of this particular drama. The final ride home though is when the two men seemingly finally speak openly to one another about their mutual lover in Kafuku's wife, even with the minor guise of keeping it seemingly just about her and her writing. In this scene we see Kafuku seemingly revealing his "ace" of his deeper connection with his wife by speaking of the way she would develop her stories while having sex with him. Okada's great in the initial reaction of his acting as he takes in the words as someone genuinely until Kafuku speaks towards nearly a direct accusation. The shift in Okada's face from a caring student to blithe adulterer is almost demonic. His eyes no longer looking to learn, but rather looking back with intensity as directly as though he is ready to speak his own "ace" that is a painful truth. Okada is amazing in his monologue of telling the tale Kafuku thought was his last true intimacy from his wife, yet not only does Takatsuki know it, he actually knows more of it. Okada's performance takes on the worst of the aggressor as he now recounts the story fully with this pride in himself that carries with it this despicable undercurrent of personal glee. What is perhaps most penetrating about it is the way Okada speaks the words almost with this selfish possession of something he has over Kafuku, rather than something he's truly sharing with him. That is before one more final shift, a hopeful shift as he finishes the tale, and Okada's performance naturally shifts one more time as faint glint of tears form in his eyes. Finally it seems less a possession but some sympathy if not empathy in trying to appreciate the woman they both loved. To the point Okada is very powerful in revealing a true vulnerability in a man, who has just technically screwed his own life over by attacking another person who took pictures of him, and that even within his confidence there too is a man wounded by loss just as Kafuku is. This is an exceptional performance by Masaki Okada, as he importantly crafts the enigma, by being the different forms the man takes in Kafuku's mind, while also still exploring the role as his own tangible being who both seems to pester the man and provide some kind of final introspection for him.