Yôko Narahashi

Yoko Narahashi is a producer, award-winning director, casting director and lyricist based in Los Angeles and Tokyo. The daughter of a Japanese diplomat to International Civil Aviation Organization of the United Nations, Yoko grew up in Montreal and Ottawa receiving her formal education in Canada. Graduating from International Christian University in Tokyo, she then trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse under Sanford Meisner in New York. Among the plays and musicals she has directed are "Hair," "The Magic Monkey" and the award winning "The Winds of God" which performed at the Lee Strasberg Institute, the Actors Studio and the United Nations, in New York, as well as in Los Angeles, Australia and New Zealand. The Winds of God also marked Narahashi's feature film directorial debut in 1995 and won her the Japan Film Critics Award for Best New Director. Narahashi has been a casting director for Hollywood feature film productions since she worked with Director and Producer Steven Spielberg on Empire of the Sun in 1987. Her Hollywood casting credits include Angelina Jolie's "Unbroken", Carl Rinsch's "47 Ronin", James Mangold's "The Wolverine", Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "Babel", Rob Marshall's "Memoirs of a Geisha", and Edward Zwick's "The Last Samurai". She was also Associate Producer for The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe, and more recently, was Producer for the 2013 World War II film Emperor, starring Tommy Lee Jones and Matthew Fox. Lyricist for Godiego, a popular rock group, among others.