Hikari Takano was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1964.  After attending boarding schools in England, he enrolled at the University of Redlands in California.  Takano, 4 a year varsity player and  NCAA Division III National Champion in Tennis, graduated  with in 1987 with a B.A. in History.

In 1988, Hikari moved to N.Y. to study acting with the legendary Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse.

In 1991, Hikari made his feature film debut in Fred Schepisi’s “Mr. Baseball”, starring Tom Selleck. He also served as Mr. Selleck’s bilingual assistant for the four month shoot in Japan.

In 1992, Hikari was cast as Leon in Barry Sonnenfeld’s “For Love or Money”, starring Michael J. Fox.

In 1993, Hikari appeared on Benetton’s billboard campaign in Times Square, New York City, for 20 months (photo). Olivieri Toscani photographed the controversial semi-nude billboard.

Hikari appeared in numerous TV commercials (Peugeot commercial), Off-Broadway, and Regional Theatre productions in his 11 years in New York City.

In 1999, Hikari moved back to Los Angeles, California, and began working as an interviewer for magazines like The Book LA, Perfect 10, Penthouse, Free & Easy, Cigar, and numerous Japanese movie magazines.

www.HikariTakano.com was officially launched on September, 2009.

Hikari has had the opportunity to interview hundreds of celebrities, such as: Dennis Hopper, Sydney Pollack, Harvey Keitel,  Mickey Rourke, David Carradine, Sugar Ray Leonard, David Lynch, Milos Forman, Norman Jewison, David O. Russell, Joel Schumacher, Mike Figgis, Spike Jonze, Kevin Costner, and Billy Bob Thornton.

INSIDE Hikari Takano Interviews with Hikari Takano

Can you please provide a short background history on your career?

I studied acting in New York with the great Sanford Meisner when he was still alive. I was mostly an actor in New York in the 90’s. I also taught tennis and did some bilingual producing on Japanese TV shows and commercials that came to New York.

When I moved to Los Angeles in 1999 my brother, also an actor, was working as a trainer to the then undefeated boxing champ Oscar De La Hoya. When a very famous Japanese magazine came to interview my brother while he was training Oscar up in Big Bear, California, they asked him if he knew anyone that could help set up future U.S. projects for them. After producing a couple of fashion projects for the magazine I felt like I could do more so I suggested the idea of my doing celebrity interviews. Their reaction was, “Stars! Well, if you can get them then absolutely.” I had no experience booking or interviewing movie stars, directors, or athletes at that time, but it was one of those situations where I knew I was perfect for it.  Still, someone had to be the first, and it was my idol, Harvey Keitel, who stepped up for me. He didn’t know who I was or what I did, and his publicist already had declined my request because Harvey was busy shooting a film in Italy. I got lucky, however, when the publicist agreed to at least forward my faxed letter to Harvey directly. I wrote a heartfelt letter to Harvey–if nothing else, it was an opportunity for me to thank the man for what his work meant to me as a young actor coming up in New York. Harvey agreed to do a phone interview, and literally within days Mickey Rourke, Stan Winston, and Sugar Ray Leonard wanted to be in the same issue. I never got terribly nervous or star struck, but this was an exception. I mean, we’re talking about the voice of ‘Charlie’ from Mean Streets and ‘Mr. White’ from Reservoir Dogs coming through my speakerphone! I was lost for words for a few seconds.

Are you a one-man crew or do you have a team you work with?

Yes. I’m a one-man band these days for sure. I used to collaborate with a cameraman for a couple of years but after so many projects with missed footage, bad angles, no custom white balance, and no audio (yes, the recorder wasn’t turned on–not once, but during two big interviews in a row!) I decided to take more responsibility and really studied how to shoot and record decent audio. Of course, I’m always in front of the camera conducting the interview so I try to bring an assistant or two with me to keep an eye on the cameras and audio devices during the shoot. But–I set up all the technical stuff before we roll, and I also do all the post work myself.

What is one of your favorite interviews and why?

Honestly, I’m totally satisfied with about 90% of the interviews I’ve done which I think is a pretty good average. Mainly because I’ve always pitched the subjects I’ve wanted to interview, even back in my magazine days. Some of my personal favorites, and interviews that I feel can hold up to anyone else’s are; Mickey Rourke, Dennis Hopper, David Carradine, Michael Madsen, Billy Bob Thornton, Steve James, Pete Rose, Brett Morgen, Jason Isaacs, and I really like the way this year’s interview with Thomas Jane turned out. The controversial interview I did with Vincent Gallo in 2004 is still extremely popular, probably because of the shock value. My website crashed when I first uploaded it in 2010. I thought it was just a piece of audio where Gallo spewed out a bunch of crazy hate, but it got major traction on the internet within minutes. Personally, I think my interviews with Sydney Pollack, Jon Voight, Spike Jonze, Milos Forman, or Ulrich Thomsen are way more entertaining, and definitely more important. A great interview is all about the interviewee and how much he or she is willing to give you. Of course, I am thoroughly immersed, researched and over prepared for every interview but it’s more about the atmosphere I try to create for the star. If you really know your stuff and they feel like you’ve done your homework and are really listening, and–if I’m lucky they might feel like, “it’s worth telling all to this guy.” Most people love to tell their story but only if the other person is truly interested. Otherwise it’s a waste of time and effort.

When you do these interviews are there certain circumstances that you’re challenged by?

The biggest challenge is time. I come into each interview having spent days or weeks researching and preparing my equipment. But if the star wants to finish when they’re supposed to, or cut out early, or if a DP or assistant failed to capture the video or audio at some point, that’s not good. Luckily, almost all my interviews go two or three times longer than the agreed upon time because again, they feel like it’s worth their time. But it’s the time management and the not knowing aspect that gets me nervous before an interview. Not the interview itself.

What do you count on to have a smooth running production?  Any special technology that you find super useful?

One thing I’ve always tried to do is to use the best tools available both in production and in post. For instance, my editing workstation features two AMD 16-core Opteron CPUs, and the Firepro W8000 GPU. It’s a monster to edit with. I’ve always edited on Sony Vegas Pro which is every bit as powerful, if not more powerful than FCP7, FCPX, or Adobe Premiere Pro. I also rely heavily on great color grading tools and effects from GenArts Sapphire 8, BorisFX BCC9, Film Convert, and Vegasaur.

The little introduction I do for each interview is where I get to do creative work using all their highlights and clips. In production I shoot exclusively with Sony Alpha Mirrorless cameras. I currently use the a99, a6000, a7s, and RX100M3.

The main front angle of the Thomas Jane interview was shot with the tiny Sony RX100M3, but it was shot with the XAVX-S codec (50mb/sec) which was excellent for coloring. I would take the image from that little $800 camera over anything from a Canon 5D MKII. The Sony a7s literally shoots in pitch darkness. Amazing innovations that are leaving Canon and Nikon in the dust.

Something has to hold up these great cameras. Not only for my interviews that are mostly from fixed positions, but also for my other outside projects where I need perfect panning and tilting heads. After trying several big-name tripods I just couldn’t find a tripod that was a combination of smooth, super sturdy, and not too heavy. Especially since the new Sony mirrorless cameras are generally much smaller than the standard DSLRs. That’s when I discovered CARTONI tripods. I currently use 2-3 CARTONI Focus HDs and a Cartoni SmartPro tripod. Steve Manios and Chris at Manios Digital put together a custom version of the SmartPro that’s become my go-to for the quick setup and exit situations. I have been incredibly impressed because every minute counts once I’m there. The search is over. The total efficiency and assembling speed of the CARTONI tripods plays a crucial part for a smooth workflow in my projects now.

Making of AMD 32 Core Opteron & Firepro GPU Workstation with Seagate Hard Drives

8 Bits of Wisdom from David Lynch's 53-Minute Interview

By Jake Folsom | Indiewire 

David Lynch fans are in luck as celebrity interviewer Hikari Takano recently released a 53-minute interview with the director, conducted back in 2006. Topics are the standard fare for a Lynch Interview: from "Mulholland Drive" to "Blue Velvet," from transcendental meditation to the 1950s.

You can access the full video on Takano's website. Below you will find some highlights.

A good night's sleep never hurts.

"I still need to sleep…so I have some fuel to go on the next day…a lot of times you work long times, but there comes a point where it's diminishing returns until you get some sleep. It depends on the schedule, but ideally it's 'earlier to bed, earlier to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.'"

"Knowing thyself" comes through meditation.

"You don't know yourself by talking to yourself or looking in the mirror. You know yourself by diving in and experiencing the self. The big self. And when you grow in that, it all becomes clearer and clearer and clearer. And you really start unfolding the full potential of the human being. It's [laughs]… you can say 'Well, it's not for me.' Whatever! But some people hear this, and it has such a ring of truth for them, they wish they'd heard it earlier. They want that experience, they want to grow rapidly…It's not a religion and it's not a cult. It's so naturally a part of the human condition."

He'll reuse actors, but only if they're "right for the part."

"I'm faithful to no one, I'm faithful to trying to get the right person for the part. If it's someone I've worked with before and love, that's beautiful…I'd love to work with Dennis [Hopper] again, he just hasn't happened yet…to be right for the part. That's the only rule."

His work is surreal, but it isn't pulled from dreams.

"I always say, I hardly ever have gotten ideas from dreams. I love dream logic. I love the feel. Ideas come to me from sitting in a char, walking around, walkin' down the street, you don't know when they're gonna pop in. An idea isn't there, and then, bingo, an idea enters the conscious mind. For me, doing things [is helpful to coming up with ideas]."

Forget the tortured artist stereotype.

"It's like, hello? It's so obvious — suffering kills creativity. If you're sick and you're vomiting, and you've got a splitting headache, how much good work are you gonna do?! You're not gonna do good work. That's not feeding anything. That's blocking everything. You start getting well, the sickness goes. You feel so good, you're catching ideas and you've got the energy to do them now. And you feel god about doing them. That's the name of the game."He rarely reads scripts.

"I don't have time to read things, and more often than not I like to catch my own ideas. But if someone said, 'Oh there's this story,' and I hear it and I say 'Wait a minute, I would like to read it,' just from a few words…something happens, maybe I'd be very interested. I don't know. It's funny how it goes."Across mediums, his process varies.

"For a film, it comes in fragments…In painting, a lot of times, for me, painting is a thing where I just get one idea that's enough of a thrill to get me out of the chair and start the process. What I notice there, in painting, is it's more action and reaction, and the thing starts evolving from its original idea. In film, I get ideas, I write them down, and then I try to translate that and get that thing on film. Along the way, new ideas can come in and join…the puzzle isn't finished 'till it's finished…some ideas don't fit and they're thrown away."

Film is holistic.

"A film is trying to get every element to 100%. How absurd would it be if casting were [worth] 90% [of a film's merit]. Let's say you got Jack Nicholson and Nicole Kidman. Great cast. But you didn't have a good story…you had lousy sets, you had horrible music, ridiculous dialogue. How good a movie would that be? Every element is critical!"

Watch: 53-Minute Interview With David Lynch On His Films, Meditation And The Importance Of Ideas

By Nicholas Laskin | The PlaylistDecember 3, 2014 at 2:04PM

It’s been a real drag not having any cinematic output from David Lynch since 2006’s meta-movie freakout “Inland Empire." Renaissance man that he is, Lynch has dabbled in a slew of creative pursuits since his last two feature films —the other being “Mulholland Drive,” arguably the most potent distillation of his gifts as a storyteller— which include transcendental meditation, painting, landscape photography and music that sounds like being dragged kicking and screaming into the crimson-red vortex of your darkest nightmares.

And yet, in spite of his dilettante proclivities, Lynch is first and foremost a filmmaker, which is to say he’s a fashioner of dreams. No filmmaker since Luis Bunuel has plumbed the murky depths of the human subconscious to such illuminating and disturbing effect. He’s also given us some of the most haunting and unforgettable screen imagery of the last half-century —we all love the dreadlocked dumpster monster from “Mulholland Drive,” but Robert Frost’s demonic, pasty-faced partygoer from “Lost Highway” will forever be burned into my brain.

Lynch is a fascinating, polarizing figure in the world of art and cinema, and in this fantastic 53-minute interview with Hikari Takano, he dishes on some of his favorite topics, including the notion of universal consciousness, the peculiar rhythms of the creative process and the music of Roy Orbison.

Not surprisingly, Lynch doesn’t seem particularly interested in dissecting his filmography in any sort of intellectual way. Although countless think pieces have attempted to decipher the enigmatic dream logic of films like “Blue Velvet,” “Mulholland Drive” and “Eraserhead,” his best films tend to play out like real dreams. They are absurd, terrifying, nonsensical and enshrouded in a lustrous sheen of mystery that makes his nightmare visions all the more unnerving.

You’d expect the director of a deeply fucked-up murder ballad like “Wild at Heart” to possess what could be called the arrogance of genius, but the Lynch we see in this interview is genial, enthusiastic, and even a little square, not unlike the characters played by his longtime leading-man surrogate Kyle MachLachlan. In fact, he seems like he’d be a pleasure to be around. In his typical, unabashedly earnest fashion, Lynch expounds on a variety of topics, which run the gamut from his now-unmistakable wardrobe (apparently, dude doesn’t care for wind on his collarbone, hence his signature button-up) to the genius of musician Chris Isaak, who recorded music for “Inland Empire” and whom Lynch calls “one of the best musicians [he] has ever worked with.” 

The director also dispels the notion of the “suffering artist” (Lynch refers to suffering itself as “big squeezing” and a “clamp on creativity”) as well as his book “Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness & Creativity,” which explores the complex relationship between dreams, creative output and existential awareness. It’s enough to make one wish that Lynch would return to the silver screen, but until then, we have the reboot of his seminal television program “Twin Peaks” to look forward to—let’s hope that doesn’t disappoint. In the meantime, the following interview is a penetrating look inside the warped, beautiful mind of one of modern cinema’s last remaining radicals. It’s a doozy.

Watch the full interview below. Preferably with a cup of damn fine coffee, or Frank Booth’s beer of choice, Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Update 1/21: Interview removed by request of Hikari Takano. You can watch it in full here.