‘Drive My Car’ Actress Sonia Yuan Signs With Artist International Group For Management

Matt Grobar
·2 min read

EXCLUSIVE: Sonia Yuan, who stars in Japan’s first Best Picture Oscar nominee Drive My Car, has signed with Artist International Group for management.

The film from director Ryusuke Hamaguchi, which adapted a 2014 short story by Haruki Murakami, has broken out as a phenomenon over the course of the 2021-22 awards season, also garnering Oscar noms for Best International Feature, Director and Adapted Screenplay, among many other accolades. It centers on Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a renowned stage actor and director who, after his wife’s unexpected death, receives an offer to direct a production of Uncle Vanya in Hiroshima. There, he begins to face the haunting mysteries his wife left behind.

More from Deadline

Yuan plays Janice Chang, the English- and Mandarin-speaking female protagonist of the Chekov play that Kafuku is putting on. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last summer and will be available for streaming on HBO Max starting on March 2.

Yuan first gained recognition when she starred in the hit Chinese romantic drama series Summer’s Desire. That same year, she went on to make her feature debut in Bo Huang’s award-winning comedy, The Island, which grossed more than $200M worldwide.

Other notable clients at Artist International Group, which CEO David Unger founded in 2017, include actors Sharon Stone (Basic Instinct), Jonathan Rhys Meyers (The Tudors), Donnie Yen (John Wick 4), Michelle Yeoh (Crazy Rich Asians), Anil Kapoor (Slumdog Millionaire), Gong Li (Mulan), Daphne Patakia (Benedetta), Rafael Cebrian (Acapulco), Fan Bingbing (The 355), Rossy de Palma (Parallel Mothers), Lee Min-Ho (Pachinko) and Saïd Taghmaoui (Wonder Woman); and such writer-directors as Amanda Sthers (Madame), Ludovic Bernard (Lupin), Tony Kaye (American History X), Michael Haussman (Edge of the World) and Roger Avary (Pulp Fiction), among others.

Yuan continues to be represented by Jules et Jim Pictures.

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.