Biography

Naoko Mori

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Naoko was born in Nagoya, Japan, and moved to New York with her parents when she was four before returning to Japan, then relocating to London when she was 12. She began to take singing lessons, and at 17 she was cast in the lead role of Kim in the West End musical "Miss Saigon" opposite John Barrowman, with whom she would later appear in the TV science-fiction series Torchwood. She has appeared on television as Julia Sawalha's studious friend Sarah in Absolutely Fabulous, the hospital reception in Casualty, and Yoko Ono in Lennon Naked. In 2006, she returned to the London musical stage to play Christmas Eve in "Avenue Q", and in 2015, she was part of the huge ensemble cast in the big-screen Everest as ill-fated mountaineer Yasuko Namba.
- IMDb mini biography by: don @ minifie-1

Along with Freema Agyeman, John Barrowman, Eve Myles, and Gareth David-Lloyd, she is one of only five actors to play the same character (Toshiko Sato) in both Doctor Who (2005) and Torchwood (2006).
Played Christmas Eve in the West End production of the musical "Avenue Q" (2006). Returned to the West End to play Lady Thiang, head wife to Ken Watanabe's King in "The King and I" (2018) at The London Palladium.
In the film Spice World (1997), she played a pregnant character and that later gives birth. There's a fantasy sequence in the film where all the Spice Girls are living tough lives as mothers. Oddly, all five Spice girls themselves have had biological children; Mori herself hasn't had any.
Born on exactly the same date as Gena Lee Nolin of Baywatch and Sheena fame.

[on Toshiko Sato in Torchwood] I think she feels she's got a lot more potential. She knows that she's got more inside her, and as we do in life she's getting to know herself a bit more. Certainly in the first season she came a little bit out of her shell, and in this (second) season she's gaining a little bit more confidence about herself. It's like she's beginning to feel more like a woman, and wanting to feel more like a woman.

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