Five Questions With… Dean Newcombe
Editor Note: Hamish has another in his series of Five Questions With…
Hamish came up with this idea because he was accumulating too much material for his Famous News Sushi column and asked if he could do these mini-interviews. Why would we say no?
Thank you Hamish for being such a trooper for us. We really appreciate all fo your hard work.
Let us know what you think of these interviews in the comments below.
TGG: Thanks for agreeing to the interview today, Dean. For all our readers who don’t know you, could you please introduce yourself?
DN: My name is Dean Newcombe and I am from England. I am currently working as a Casting Director and Producer in Tokyo, after 10 years of working as an actor and model here. I traveled a lot before settling in Japan and started an NPO in 2011 called Intrepid Model Adventures or IMA, to support environmental issues, help people regain their health and wellbeing and to support charitable causes. In March, 2011 after the Great Eastern Earthquake and Tsunami in Tohoku, I formed a volunteer team and spent over 9 months in the region. That really solidified my relationship with Japan.
TGG: Can you tell us about your new show on NHK and how it came about?
DN: In 2015 I created the pilot and concept for the TV series ‘runAway: Sole of Japan’ in order to support tourism in Japan and share my experiences with an audience around the world. We finally started broadcasting last month, April 2019 in Japan on J Sports channel and globally on NHK World through a magazine style show called Catch Japan.
It feels good to release this work after years of effort. The adventure took me all across Japan. Using only my physical body to explore 11 prefectures and travel almost 2,000km !
TGG: The $64,000 question… what brought you to Japan?
DN: I think curiosity and a fantasy about living in Japan. I loved meeting Japanese travellers in my backpacking days. I also made a silly assumption that modelling here would be easy for me after doing it else where. It wasn’t, I was far too big for this market, but I made it work and made it my home.
TGG: What’s next for you?
DN: Hopefully loads of new content. It’s super hard doing anything from scratch. Building 11 episodes of a TV show is like setting off to create 4 feature films simultaneously ha ha! I would never even dare do that again, but now we have a brand, a format, a team, broadcasting possibilities. We can take on new adventures!
TGG: How can we support you (follow you on social media, buy your stuff, watch your show)?
DN: Watch the show! Success for runAway is all about being watched and enjoyed. If people see it, follow us and want more. We will go far.
https://www.youtube.com/runawayjapan
First you HAVE to subscribe and watch the first episode (in 4 parts), that’s a must! ha ha
Then if you have some space left…
Instagram – @runawayjapan
Facebook – @runawaysoleofjapan
We put up lots of content on Facebook and Insta too.
I and I think I speak for my team too, are just delighted people will enjoy the series and learn a little more about Japan while being entertained. That’s all we ever set out to do.
Thanks Hamish!
TGG: Thank you Dean!
Here’s episode one:
