Godzilla Actor of the Day (Kenpachiro Satsuma)

For this "Actor of the Day" column I've already chronicled various actors in front of the camera...now I thought I should give credit to the man behind the suit.

Kenpachiro Satsuma has literally been the "man-in-suit" within multiple Godzilla films.

He has played Godzilla no less than 8 times, not to mention the additional films where he has played other kaiju monsters.

He was singlehandedly responsible for bringing Godzilla to life and giving him that personality we all know and love.

Sure there were other special effect technicians adding explosives, digital fire breath, eye and tail movement, etc., but nobody can state they played as a big as a role as Kenpachiro did.

Interesting side note of trivia, he first played Godzilla within the Godzilla 1985 almost by accident.

The original Godzilla stuntman left at the last minute so Kenpachiro was hired to replace him. But unfortunately that Godzilla suit couldn't be remade in time to conform to the new actor's build.

As such Kenpachiro suffered many cuts and injuries throughout the making of the film when his costume kept riding against him.

But his experience was still satisfactory enough to play the King of Monsters in multiple other films, which was great news for all of us.

In fact here's a list of the Godzilla movies he's been in:

Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) as Hedorah
Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) as Gigan
Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973) as Gigan
The Return of Godzilla (1984) as Godzilla
Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989) as Godzilla
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) as Godzilla
Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992) as Godzilla
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993) as Godzilla
Monster Planet Of Godzilla (1994) as Godzilla
Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994) as Godzilla
Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995) as Godzilla

Impressive yes?

I also found a very good interview with Kenpachiro that I highly suggest everyone read, as he gives great insight into the making of those movies and even gives his own thoughts on the Godzilla 1998 film.

Enjoy!

historyvortex.org: Kenpachiro Satsuma interview