SAKURA
ANDO

Sakura Ando is a Japanese actor born in Tokyo on 18 February 1986. Her work includes independent drama, television and films by directors Hirokazu Kore-eda and Takashi Yamazaki.

Ando received the Japan Academy Prize for leading actress for 100 Yen Love (2014), in which she plays a woman who takes up boxing. The film follows its protagonist through work, setbacks and a demanding new discipline.

In Kore-eda’s Shoplifters (2018), she played Nobuyo Shibata, part of a household whose bonds are tested. The film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and Ando received a Japan Academy Prize for her performance.

She later reunited with Kore-eda in Monster (2023) as Saori Mugino. That same year she played Sumiko Ota, a neighbor navigating life in postwar Tokyo, in Godzilla Minus One.

Across these stories, Ando often gives close attention to the tensions inside ordinary relationships. Her characters connect large social pressures to gestures and choices within households and communities.