Mari Yamamoto will star opposite Brendan Fraser in Hikari’s “Rental Family.” The film follows a down and out actor living in Tokyo, who is hired as the token American guy for a Japanese rental family company providing professional stand-in services. The Searchlight Pictures‘ release will commence principal photography next week in Japan.
Yamamoto was most recently seen in the Apple TV+ series “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,” a sci-fi epic in which she appeared with Kurt Russell, Wyatt Russell and Kiersey Clemmons. Prior to that series, she was seen in another Apple production, “Pachinko” opposite Youn Yuh-Jung and Jin Ha.
Fraser recently won an Oscar for his work in “The Whale.” His credits include “Gods and Monsters,” “The Mummy,” Crash” and “No Sudden Move.” He most recently appeared in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Hikari directed episodes of the Netflix series “Beef,” which won Emmys and Golden Globe Awards, as well as the feature film “37 Seconds.” She wrote the screenplay for “Rental Family” with Stephen Blahut, a collaborator on “37 Seconds.”
Producers on the film include Eddie Vaisman andJulia Lebedev of Sight Unseen, Hikari andShin Yamaguchi. Blahut is an executive producer along with Tomo Koizumi.
Yamamoto is represented by KP Talent, Suskin/Karshan Management, Narrative and Yorn, Levine, Barnes, Krintzman, Rubenstein, Kohner, Endlich, Goodell & Gellman.
Searchlight’s SVP of production, Taylor Friedman, and its manager of creative affairs, Daniel Yu, are overseeing “Rental Family”for the studio, reporting to heads of production and development Katie Goodson-Thomas and DanTram Nguyen. Searchlight will announce its release plans for the film at a later date.
