Takako Fuji
Takako Fuji is a Japanese actress and Voice [acting in Japan|voice actress] from Tokyo, Japan. She is best known for her performances as Kayako Saeki in the Ju-On and Grudge |Grudge] franchises.
Biography
A native of Tokyo, Fuji studied English literature at the Aoyama Gakuin University, and during her college years, she studied acting as a student in and later became a contracted actress there. Her work was usually stage actress or in voice-over studios, but occasionally she would also appear in TV series or films. Her most famous role to this date is that of Kayako Saeki, the vengeful ghost in the Ju-on series, which she subsequently played in The Grudge series later on as well. She first played Kayako in 1997, in a short film titled Kattei Hōmon, which was created as a project for film academy by Takashi Shimizu—one of the creators of the series and the director of most of its installments—and later served as the foundation for the entire franchise. She later reprised the role in Katasumi, another short film that aired in 1998 as part of the TV program Gakkô no kaidan G, and continued to play the character in the direct-to-video films Ju-on and its sequel, Ju-on 2.When director Takashi Shimizu decided to direct two additional installments for a broader theatrical release, which he called Ju-on: The Grudge and Ju-on: The Grudge 2, Fuji played the character of Kayako twice more. When the films were subsequently remade for an American audience as The Grudge and The Grudge 2, she returned as Kayako again. However, she declined the role in The Grudge 3 which subsequently went to Aiko Horiuchi.
In 1998, she married, a fellow member of the Theatrical Group EN. They divorced in 2004.
Filmography
Films
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | Refs |
| 2000 | Ju-on: The Curse | Kayako Saeki | Direct to-DVD | |
| 2000 | Ju-on: [The Curse 2] | Kayako Saeki | Direct to-DVD |