It’s often said that celebrities thrive in front of an audience, but with Naoki Kobayashi, it’s another arena. Literally.
As a member of two popular Japanese boy bands (yes, two), Kobayashi regularly entertains crowds of more than fifty thousand people. He’s been dancing on global stages since 2009, when he joined the nineteen-member group EXILE, which has sold more than twenty million records in Japan alone. He also belongs to the third generation of J SOUL BROTHERS, a group with more than ten million in worldwide record sales. “J-pop fans are like beasts,” he says of performing for screaming, sold-out stadiums on annual tours. “But they and the guys are my family. I love them.”
Victor Demarchelier
Kobayashi has been dancing since he was a small child, as well as practicing martial arts and swordsmanship. Through EXILE, he works with children’s charities to choreograph dance and fight scenes. Even as he’s added stage and screen acting to his repertoire, dance remains his first love.
“With dancing, I don’t need words,” Kobayashi said. “Feelings and thoughts can’t be worded easily. We have something without words inside of us, and dancing expresses that.”
Kobayashi, who’d acted onstage for years in between tours, decided in 2015 that film should be his next move. After a few gigs on Japanese television and a fateful meeting with Ridley Scott, he was cast in a movie the director was executive-producing: Netflix’s Earthquake Bird, based on the same-named noir novel about an expatriate accused of murder when her friend—one third of a love triangle—disappears.
Kobayashi stars as Teiji, a Tokyo photographer who drives a wedge between the women, played by Alicia Vikander and Riley Keough. The project marks his first foray into American cinema, and he’s eager to become a familiar face—in fact, he aspires to bring his martial-arts experience to action films and the Marvel Universe.
Victor Demarchelier
“A lot of movies from America have changed my life and my views,” Kobayashi says. He cites Leonardo DiCaprio, Adam Driver, and Bradley Cooper as his inspirations, noting how, despite reaching vaunted status, they are “still struggling” and evolving. His goal is to launch a career as varied as theirs—one that allows him to sing and dance in a musical as well as wield a sword.
“I need to act to save myself, and to open my mind,” Kobayashi says. “I’m not special, though. I’m just the son of my parents. But through stories, we can connect.”
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