Eiji Okuda doesn't fit into any of the usual boxes for actors in Japan — or anywhere else for that matter. He's had his share of leading roles over a three-decade career, often as a world-weary cop or gangster, but he's not what the local industry considers a star.

Despite his many TV drama credits, he studiously avoids the broad emoting standard for TV-trained actors. Instead, he usually plays down, even depressed, while stoking his character's inner fires. When the fires roar to the surface, as anger or passion, his slight, slump-shouldered frame flows with expressive power, be it in the form of a sudden punch or an explosion of tears. In the next scene, though, he is back to his baseline persona: A man lonely and strange, but at the same time canny and fearless.

Born Toyoaki Ando in 1950 in Aichi Prefecture, he dropped out of Meiji University to work as the secretary of a Diet member — a job he got through his politician father. He took up acting, but struggled until his breakthrough in the 1979 Toshiya Fujita film "Motto Shinayaka ni Motto Shitataka ni" ("More Flexibly More Forcefully"). After that Okuda found a steady stream of roles in both TV dramas and films.