10 Questions For Rinko Kikuchi

Rinko Kikuchi’s breakthrough performance as Chieko, a deaf-mute teenager in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel, was so convincing that co-star Cate Blanchett at first assumed the 26-year-old Japanese actress really couldn’t speak. It’s the kind of talent that has propelled Kikuchi from obscurity to an Oscar nomination—the first for a Japanese actress in 49 years. Kikuchi talks to Time’s Michiko Toyama about Babel, isolation and her newfound fame.

What made you want to work with the director Iñárritu?
I saw Alejandro’s Amores Perros and 21 Grams and loved them. When I learned he was to make a movie in Japan, I thought it would be his first and last here. I spent about a year auditioning and learning sign language. I came to make friends with girls that were deaf.

Apparently, there was a lot of uncertainty about whether you’d get the part.
Alejandro told me he would give me the role only a week before shooting began, which if I think about it now is quite amazing. [Laughs.] He initially wanted a real deaf girl for the role of Chieko. I fully understood that, but I was also trying to find what I could bring into the role as an actress. I was constructing the character of Chieko, feeling how she would have felt.

Did you have any language problems working with him?
It was beyond that. The theme of this film is that people should be able to communicate without words. In order not to diminish my concentration, Alejandro would ask me to communicate in sign language and had it interpreted into English.

How would you sum up Chieko’s very complex character?
Chieko is open and blunt, and always edgy. Her anger, passion, the distance from her father, the loss of her mother—she is dealing with all these problems and is always looking for someone to be hugged by, not necessarily sexually, but for some warmth.

Not sexually?
Well, there’s a bit of that, too. Yearning for someone is what every woman does to a certain extent.

What did the role teach you about being deaf and mute?
I learned that about half the people who are deaf have a positive attitude. Some think of it as part of their identity. Even if you were not deaf and mute, if you went to a foreign country with a different language, you would feel isolated. If you are trapped verbally, I think anyone can feel this kind of isolation.

Babel features the first nude scene of your career. How did you cope with it?
The scene is one where Chieko is seeking something fundamental. It’s not that she is looking for sex, but that sex is the only means she has to keep the guy, and she can’t help doing it. Chieko had no other way of communication, and I felt her despair. I knew from the beginning that there was going to be such a scene, but the nudity was handled so beautifully that I wasn’t concerned and tried to be professional.

How has the Oscar nomination changed your life?
My work begins and ends on the film set, so everything else I just enjoy. I meet a lot of people and enjoy myself.

Do you think you’ll win?
I don’t know. I’m just having a ball. It’s like it was with my audition [for Babel]. Whatever the outcome, the process itself never fails to amaze me. It’s amazing that I’m even nominated and I’m very grateful. Here I am, an unknown Japanese actress who arrives in Hollywood and is warmly accepted and celebrated.

Your next project is The Brothers Bloom, with Adrien Brody and Rachel Weisz. How do you choose your roles?
I feel good when I’m on set, so all I want is to have more of that. I really want to treasure such times. Of course, I’ll read a script carefully and also look at the previous work of the director. Timing is important, too. But I act on instinct more or less.