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SINGAPORE – Kiko Mizuhara has been hoovering up creative credits all year.<\/p>\n
In September, the Japanese American model-actress-entrepreneur added one more hyphen, musician, to her already crowded handle when she released her debut single Feelin Wee, teasing a full album release in 2027. In November, she is opening a cafe in Tokyo\u2019s trendy Setagaya ward.<\/p>\n
In between, she has been promoting her latest film and first project with an American director, Vintage Violence. The pulpy crime comedy starring Mizuhara as a disaffected model-hostess looking to cash out on a bag of antique jeans made its Asian premiere on Nov 1, closing out the 37th Singapore International Film Festival<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n Mizuhara, co-star Cole Sprouse and director Eugene Kotlyarenko flew in for the screening.<\/p>\n In a short tete-a-tete with The Straits Times the day before, Mizuhara said the \u201cstrange\u201d and \u201cmagical\u201d parallels she shared with her character, Izumi \u2013 down to her birthplace in Texas \u2013 reeled her into the role after a two-year break from acting.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my 20s, I worked on a lot of films and TV series, mainly in Japan and Asia. I learnt a lot from forcing myself to play a character that was different from me, and I did a lot of projects so I could learn and grow as an actor,\u201d said the 36-year-old. \u201cBut after experiencing Covid-19, I realised I don\u2019t wanna do that any more. I just wanna work on things I purely love and am passionate about.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, \u201crefreshed and rewired\u201d, she is ditching jobs she \u201cshould\u201d do for ones that feel like play.<\/p>\n It helped that the script for the denim caper was funny, she added. The action follows American livestreamer and urban explorer Carter (Sprouse) as he travels to Japan on his fan Izumi\u2019s urging, to sell the circa 19th century Levi\u2019s jeans he finds in an abandoned mineshaft.<\/p>\n An absurd number of bodies pile up as Izumi\u2019s scummy host boyfriend makes off with the loot, crossing a denim-crazy yakuza boss and an exiled gangster with a Fentanyl-spritzing prosthetic finger along the way.<\/p>\n The chaotic plotting prompted Mizuhara to make a mindmap of Izumi\u2019s relationships and motivations, a first in her 16-year screen career.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t want to forget certain things that were in (the character). I was trying to make sure that (she) had a proper connection with Carter, with her boyfriend \u2013 like what made her fall in love with this guy because he\u2019s kind of a piece of sh*t. Even though the movie doesn\u2019t show her full background, it was important for me to connect all those dots to play her,\u201d said Mizuhara.<\/p>\n