![]() Soon after that, Tao made her debut on the European runways, breaking barriers as one of the very few prominent East Asian models of that era. In 2006, she made a decision to move to Paris and develop her career on an international level. She started modeling as a teenager in Japan, when she was 14 years old. She also had recurring roles in the television series Hannibal (2013), The Man in the High Castle (2015) and Westworld (2016). She made her film debut in 2013 as Mariko Yashida, the female lead, in The Wolverine (2013). In 2009, she was one of the faces of Ralph Lauren. “Tao Okamoto 15” opens Friday, May 9 at Hudson Studios, 601 West Twenty-sixth Street #1330, Okamoto born in Chiba, Japan on May 22, 1985, known professionally as Tao, is a Japanese actress and model. “I’ve definitely become stronger as a girl.” Strong enough to take on the superhero film circuit, certainly. Modeling helped me become more confident,” she says. ![]() “When I started, I couldn’t really appreciate how tall I was and that I had a very different look from other Japanese girls. ![]() But that’s not to say she’s leaving modeling behind-it’s had far too much of an impact on her for that. ![]() I can also bring what I learned from my acting experience to modeling-stronger expressions and all that stuff.” The acting gig was more than just a brief dalliance, however: Just last month, Okamoto was cast in the forthcoming Batman vs. “Acting is exciting because I get the chance to step out of the industry for a while and then come back and appreciate more where I am. “I wouldn’t say I did everything, but I’ve done a little bit of the whole fashion industry,” she says. Something different is important to Okamoto at this point, which could be why she auditioned for, and was subsequently cast in, last year’s The Wolverine (though she claims she just wanted a chance to meet Hugh Jackman). “For me, it’s very important to be around normal people.” She also makes an effort to find entertainment beyond the industry, citing a recent Broadway excursion to see Pippin the Musical because, as she puts it, “It’s something totally different from fashion.” “I don’t hang out with other models or fashion people all the time,” she says. “I was really excited to work with new talent,” says Okamoto, who wanted to promote photographers who she felt were slightly “lesser known” in the process as a testament to her own longevity and her understanding of the importance of personal relationships in the industry. The Japanese-born, New York–based model was scouted on the streets of Tokyo at age 14, moved stateside in 2009 (the same year Phillip Lim put all his models in wigs based on her own choppy, boyish cut), and tomorrow she’ll celebrate a decade and a half of working in the fashion industry with the opening of a photo exhibition at Manhattan’s Hudson Studios titled “Tao Okamoto 15.” Over the past year, Okamoto collaborated with photographers on-the-rise like Johan Lindeberg, Max Snow, and Victor Demarchelier on portraits for the show that display some of her celebrated range as a subject: from the more conceptual (face painting!) to the more classic (the occasional nude). She may not look it, but Tao Okamoto has been in the biz for fifteen years, which, by today’s fashion standards, might as well be a century.
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