Gordon Maeda

Maeda was born on January 9, 2000, in Los Angeles, California. He is the son of Japanese action actor Sonny Chiba and second wife Tamami. He has one brother Mackenyu and a half-sister Juri Manase from his father's previous marriage. Maeda lived in Beverly Hills for 12 years until he graduated elementary school, before moving to Japan with his mother.[1] His parents divorced in 2015. He learned Kyokushin karate since the age of 5 and continued for 7 years. In elementary school, he fell in love with saxophone upon his first encounter with the instrument and thought he could play it for his whole life. After entering junior high school in Kyoto, he joined the school's brass band and took a break from karate. It was a period in which he developed his desire to enroll at Tokyo University of the Arts with the goal of becoming professional saxophonist. In order to further pursue his dream he went to Meisei Gakuin, a private senior high school in Okayama which has highly reputable brass band and special course to go professional.[2] He lived in the school dorm in Okayama throughout high school. Together with Meisei Gakuin brass band, he won silver and bronze awards at All-Japan Band Competition in 2016 and 2017.[3] He started to consider going into showbiz after unexpectedly failing his entrance exam for Tokyo University of the Arts.[4] He ultimately put his professional saxophonist dream to rest.

During a private screening of his brother's movie Over Drive in 2018, through his father he got acquainted with entertainment industry officials including the team which later produced his debut movie, Little Love Song. He made his runway debut in Tokyo Girls Collection (TGC) Kitakyushu 2018.[5] For his stage name, he changed kanji writing of his birth last name from 前田 (Mae-da) to 眞栄田 (Ma-e-da) because he wanted to include "真" character in it, just like his father and brother's stage names.[6] He kicked off his acting debut by portraying student band guitarist Shinji Fukumura in music drama movie Little Love Song, released on May 24, 2019. Prior to filming the movie in Okinawa, the casts trained to play band instruments respective to their roles for six months. Maeda joined other cast members for the movie's round of promotion including performing on television music programs Music Station and Love Music as "Chiisana Koi no Uta Band".[7][8] In July 2019, he starred in sports-themed TV drama No Side Manager as Keita Nanao, an ex-rugby player returnee from New Zealand. He got the role for the drama through three stages of audition. He gained 15 kg in the span of 3 months to prepare for the audition so his body could mimic that of a rugby player.[9]

• Official website
• Gordon Maeda at IMDb