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Acting · b. 1982 · Tokyo, Japan
is a Japanese actress and model currently residing in France. Minamoto began modeling while attending university in Japan. After graduating, she worked as an office lady at a major trading company for a few months, but left to pursue a career in film. While on vacation in Paris to take ballet lessons, she was scouted by a French modeling agency, signed a contract, and resumed her modeling career in Paris.
Minamoto became a well-known figure in the European advertising industry, appearing in ads for beauty brands such as Clarins, Dior, La Roche-Posay, L'Oréal, Garnier, Wella, and Agnès b. She also appeared in many music videos for leading English and French acts such as Pet Shop Boys, Alain Chamfort, and David Hallyday.
In the spring of 2006, she auditioned in Paris for the role of Tamao in Edogawa Ranpo-based film Inju: The Beast in the Shadow, opposite Benoît Magimel, and it played at Cannes. Minamoto fell in love at first sight with Academy Award-nominated director Barbet Schroeder, and despite the objections of the Japanese producer, who insisted on using a local celebrity, she won the role 18 months after her audition and after several callbacks.
