Studio Ghibli Co-founder Toshio Suzuki has revealed the reason why Hayao Miyazaki is rarely seen in public these days.
Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli won an Oscar this year with The Boy and the Heron. Miyazaki's first Academy Award came in 2003 for Spirited Away. Now, 21 years later, he's clinched another.
One thing many noticed, however, was that the Japanese filmmaker was absent from the Oscar Awards. In an interview with Japanese news outlet Oricon, Studio Ghibli co-founder Toshio Suzuki explained why Miyazaki did not attend the award show.
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It seems that Miyazaki was pretty excited about winning his second Oscar, but he didn't feel that he should show his happy face, which might be one of the reasons why he decided to stay home, instead of making the trip overseas to accept the award.
In an interview, Studio Ghibli co-founder Suzuki revealed that Miyazaki had really wanted to win this award, but just didn't want to show himself to the outside world. He revealed that Miyazaki had said, "as a Japanese boy, I shouldn't show my happy face".
But he was smiling. He was completely happy. Everyone is happy. He was excited. He tried very hard to suppress his feelings, saying, 'I don't care,' but I got the sense that he wanted it a lot. I was still nervous. I told him, 'Congratulations,' and he said, 'same to you.
Another reason why Miyazaki has been out of the limelight is that he has previously announced his retirement, even though he still wanted to make movies and had ideas for more stories. This early retirement announcement, and then returning to making films has embarrassed Miyazaki somehow.
Suzuki explained that Miyazaki doesn't want to "repeat the foolishness of explaining and then lying", referring to the previous false retirement statements by the Studio Ghibli co-owner. He also added on that he would be handling public relations going forward and giving Miyazaki time to focus on making new movies going forward.
It seems that Miyazaki is already working on another movie, so we can expect something unique from Studio Ghibli in the future.