Charlie Brown (Lost in Translation) Lost in Translation (2003)
Charlie Brown is the Japanese friend of John's who hosts the BB-gun apartment sceneb16 and pulls the night out into the bar and the karaoke box. The character is named after the actor's actual nickname; Fumihiro Hayashi was a friend of Sofia Coppola's from her years moving between Tokyo and New York fashion circles, and the film's "God Save the Queen" karaoke turn is a faithful re-staging of something Coppola had seen him do years earlier.
Who the actor was
Fumihiro Hayashi was a Tokyo-based fashion editor (he was the editor-in-chief of the Japanese magazine Dune in the 2000s) and a friend of Coppola's from her years moving between fashion-press Tokyo and New York. He was not a working actor; the role was effectively a friend playing a version of himself. Hayashi died in 2017; obituaries in the fashion press identified him primarily as a fashion editor and secondarily as the man who sang "God Save the Queen" in Lost in Translation.
"Fumihiro Hayashi was one of the great Tokyo fashion editors of his generation, and the man who sang 'God Save the Queen' in the karaoke scene Sofia Coppola put in Lost in Translation. He was a friend of Sofia's from her teenage years going to Tokyo for fashion, and the karaoke moment was something he had actually done in front of her years before the movie." — Vogue Japan, Remembering Fumihiro Hayashi (2017, translated)
What the character does
Charlie Brown is the Tokyo connector — the local friend who has the apartment, the friends, the bar, and the karaoke box that make the night out possible. The BB-gun apartment sceneb16 is the first time Bob is put in a Tokyo space that is not the Park Hyatt; the small loud crowded room with the BB-gun target on the wall and the video game blaring is the film's introduction to the texture of actual Tokyo social life as opposed to the hotel's atmosphere. Charlie is the host, and the host is genuine.
The bar that followsb17 is where Charlie launches into "God Save the Queen" with a thunderous, completely committed delivery — the moment Coppola has said she had wanted to put in a movie since she first saw him do it in the 1990s.
"Sofia put my friend in the movie. Fumi sang 'God Save the Queen' the way he had been singing it for years at karaoke nights. We had all heard him do it. She just decided to put it on screen. He didn't even change anything." — Sofia Coppola, The Telegraph (2017)
Why the character matters structurally
Charlie's apartment and the karaoke night are the film's most generous pre-midpoint scenes — the moment when the initial approach (try to make shape happen by inhabiting templates fully) is working in its most inviting form. Bob is not lonely in the apartment; Charlotte is not lost in the bar. The night is the film's small demonstration that connection across a language gap is possible, and the connection is hosted by Charlie. He is not a major character; he is a structural condition.
The character also pushes back against the orientalism critique in a small but real way. Charlie is a Japanese character with a name (the nickname is the name), a personality, an apartment, friends, and a singing voice. He is not background. He is not a punchline. He is the host. The defenders of the film typically point to Charlie and his apartment as the part of the film whose Japanese characters are treated with full warmth.