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Masami Nagasawa (長澤 まさみ Nagasawa Masami?, born June 3, 1987 in Iwata, Shizuoka) is a Japanese actress under Toho Entertainment. She has performed in many famous movies and television dramas including Crying out Love, In the Center of the World, Nada Sousou, Dragon Zakura and Proposal Daisakusen. She graduated from Horikoshi High School in 2006. She is also known as "Ma-chan" or as Yamashita Tomohisa calls her "ma-tan". She is the daughter of Kazuaki Nagasawa, the former manager of the J. League team Júbilo Iwata.

In 2000, she auditioned in the 5th (Year 2000) Toho "Cinderella" Contest at the age of 12, and emerged as the youngest winner ever out of a total contestant pool of 35,153 individuals. This marked the beginning of her career in the entertainment industry. She made her debut in the movie, Crossfire, released in the same year. In the following year, she appear to have commented, "I did wonder if it's true that becoming a "Cinderella" mean that I will immediately become a famous actress". Afterwards, she became a professional model for the popular teen magazine, Peach Lemon.

In 2002, her appearance in the Nabisco CM earned her the title of "The Pretty Girl from the Nabisco CM" in magazines and TV shows, as her name was not yet well-known at the time.

In 2003, she had her very first leading role in the movie, Robokon. This is a movie about a high school girl who reluctantly participates in the National Robot Contest for High School Students. Masami was awarded the Best Newcomer prize in the 27th Japanese Academy Awards for her excellent performance in this movie. Later, she commented that it was this movie that first brought out her acting skills, and that it remains one of her favourite works to this day.

She co-starred with Chihiro Otsuka, the Judges' Special Award winner from the 5th Toho "Cinderella" Contest, in the 27th movie of the Godzilla Series, Godzilla: Tokyo SOS in 2003 and the last movie of the series Godzilla: Final Wars in 2004. The two actresses also sang the track, The Song of Mothra, which was later released as part of the Godzilla: Tokyo SOS sound track CD.

In 2004, Masami starred as the heroine of the story, a teenage girl who died of leukemia, in the big hit movie, Crying Out Love, In the Center of the World. The movie was a box office success in Japan, earning 8500 million Yen in total. It was in this movie that she decided to shave off all her hair to accommodate her role as a leukemia patient. Her outstanding performance in this movie earned her numerous awards including the Best Supporting Actress Prize (the youngest ever) in the 28th Japanese Academy Awards.

Since then, she has also starred in other movies and has also been actively involved in dramas and other TV shows. In 2005, she starred as a student along with several others in the all popular high school inspiration drama, Dragon Zakura. Then in 2006, she starred as a female ninja in her first NHK Taiga Drama, Komyo ga Tsuji, which was immediately followed by her appearance as the female protagonist in the drama remake of the 1981 big hit movie, Sailor Fuku to Kikanjuu (starring Hiroko Yakushimaru). Her first single was subsequently released under the name Hoshi Izumi, the name of the female protagonist from Sailor Fuku to Kikanjuu.

In April 2007, she co-starred with Tomohisa Yamashita for the second time in the fantasy love comedy, Proposal Daisakusen (first time was in Dragon Zakura). She spent nearly one month in India filming for her latest SP drama, Butterfly Stroke in Ganges River, based on Takano Teruko's original travel biography.

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