Clyde Kusatsu
Clyde Kusatsu is an actor, born 1948.
Clyde Kusatsu has appeared in more than three hundred film and television productions since 1970, a career shape almost nobody has any more. Born in Honolulu in 1948, he started in summer stock there, studied theatre at Northwestern, and reached Los Angeles in time for the era when a good character actor could work every week of the year.
The network years typed him as competence: doctors, professors, businessmen, ministers, delivered in a dry, unhurried way that made him equally usable in comedy and drama with no adjustment. His Reverend Chong on All in the Family, refusing to baptise Archie Bunker's grandson without the parents' consent, is the template. In film he is the executive across the table in Rising Sun and Bird on a Wire, the tanker skipper in Godzilla, the English teacher in American Pie, and a familiar face in In the Line of Fire and 47 Ronin.
Voice work became the second act. He is the Grand Master in Samurai Jack, a presence in Batman Beyond, Aladdin and the King of Thieves and Avatar: The Last Airbender, and so reached a generation of children who never saw the live-action work. Off screen he has taken the union job seriously: the first elected president of the SAG-AFTRA Los Angeles local, four times its national vice president between 2013 and 2021, and now secretary of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation. Recent credits include Blue Eye Samurai, Pantheon and A Man on the Inside.
Movies (50)
- American Pie (1999)
- ...All the Marbles (1981)
- 47 Ronin (2013)
- Midway (1976)
- Godzilla (1998)
- Dream Lover (1994)
- The Librarian: Quest for the Spear (2004)
- In the Line of Fire (1993)
- Pretty Persuasion (2005)
- Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008)
- Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996)
- Bird on a Wire (1990)
- The Interpreter (2005)
- The Perfect Weapon (1991)
- Rising Sun (1993)
- Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993)
- Recess: School's Out (2001)
- Rumor Has It... (2005)
- Turner & Hooch (1989)
- Spy Hard (1996)
- Meteor (1979)
- Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama (2005)
- Hollywood Homicide (2003)
- Love Happens (2009)
- The United States of Leland (2003)
- Made in America (1993)
- Volunteers (1985)
- The Challenge (1982)
- A Nanny for Christmas (2010)
- Shopgirl (2005)
TV (46)
- Magnum, P.I. (1980)
- The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy (2001)
- Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005)
- Samurai Jack (2001)
- Batman Beyond (1999)
- Lilo & Stitch: The Series (2003)
- All in the Family (1971)
- Lou Grant (1977)
- The Lion Guard (2016)
- The Hogan Family (1986)
- Pantheon (2022)
- Law & Order: LA (2010)
- Benson (1979)
- The Wayans Bros. (1995)
- Still Standing (2002)
- BLUE EYE SAMURAI (2023)
- Pinky and the Brain (1995)
- The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest (1996)
- A Man on the Inside (2024)
- The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries (1995)
- Ellery Queen (1975)
- Dr. Ken (2015)
- All-American Girl (1994)
- Mickey Mouse Works (1999)
- City Guys (1997)
- Fantastic Four (1994)
- Webster (1983)
- SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron (1993)
- The Grinder (2015)
- Stingray (1985)
Where to start with Clyde Kusatsu
There is no single defining performance here, so lead with the one that shows the instrument: Samurai Jack, where he plays the Grand Master and the voice does everything the animation cannot. Then Avatar: The Last Airbender for the same instrument used gently.
For live action, In the Line of Fire and Rising Sun are nineties studio work at its most typical, and worth watching for how much authority he extracts from very few lines. American Pie is two scenes and a punchline he lands cleanly. Godzilla is bad, but he is in the good part at the beginning. The late work is the pleasant surprise: BLUE EYE SAMURAI and A Man on the Inside both hand a character actor in his seventies something to actually play.