Nana Mori is a Japanese actress known for the earthy naturalism and grounded vulnerability she brings to contemporary independent and mainstream cinema. Discovered in her home prefecture of Oita at age 15, she bypassed traditional idol career tracks in favor of selective collaborations with prominent Japanese auteurs. She gained widespread international recognition in 2019 for her voice acting breakthrough as Hina Amano in Makoto Shinkai’s climate-anxiety anime masterpiece Weathering with You. Recognizing her chameleonic ability to balance youthful innocence with an understated melancholy, legendary filmmaker Shunji Iwai cast her in his 2020 epistolary romance Last Letter. Playing a dual role across fragmented timelines, her performance earned her the Newcomer of the Year award at the 44th Japan Academy Film Prize. In the 2023 series The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House, Mori shines as Kiyo, a aspiring maiko who finds her true calling as a house cook. Her performance is the series’ emotional core, anchoring Hirokazu Kore-eda’s culinary world with a quiet, unforced warmth that eschews sentimentality for something genuinely lived-in.
