In the old days, some of the actors came from the pool of foreigners who worked in amateur theatre—performing at the Foreign Embassies in Tokyo (where Robert Dunham was discovered). Other's were pulled from the street, until expat Ed Keane and Tokyo-born Osman "Johnny" Yusef started the "Kokusai Agency" to act as a go-between for Japanese studios in securing non-Asians for film and television. Most of them couldn't act, but the Japanese studios generally wanted foreigners that "looked right" for their roles—people who responded to ads Kokusai would run in English-language newspapers. A minor amount, mostly pretty girls, were pooled from actual Japanese modeling agencies that hired military brats.

Today, it's a completely different story; Japanese studios put in calls to huge modeling and talent agencies, who keep foreigners on file, look through headshots, and the studios pick them accordingly. But, much like in the post-war years, they generally pick people that look right for the role—to them—whether they can act or not (mostly not).
August Ragone
Author, EIJI TSUBURAYA: MASTER OF MONSTERS
Coming this fall from Chronicle Books

Director, SHOCK IT TO ME! Classic Horror Film Festival
Oct. 5-7, 2007 • Castro Theatre • San Francisco