From Alameda Jr. YBA to the Oscars

Miyako Bellizzi has evolved from dancing in the Bon Odori circle at the Buddhist Temple of Alameda’s Obon to walking the red carpet as an Oscar nominee in Hollywood.

Earlier this year, the former Jr. YBA member was a first-time nominee for an Academy Award in the Best Costume Design category for the critically acclaimed film “Marty Supreme,” starring Timothee Chalamet and Gwyneth Paltrow. The Oscar went to Kate Hawley for “Frankenstein.”

Even months after the ceremony, Belizzi said she was still processing her Oscar experience.

“I feel very honored to even be recognized because it’s such a big deal,” she said during an interview on July 20. “I couldn’t even believe it was happening to me, of all people.”

She said the ceremony was “very cool,” “surreal” and “overwhelming. You look over to your right and there’s Leonardo DiCaprio.” 

But she also realized that they were all coworkers and she was able to get to know other nominees at a pre-ceremony luncheon.

Bellizzi took her mother, Yumi Yasuda, and younger brother, Nick, to the Oscar ceremony at the Dolby Theater on March 21.

Yasuda expressed her pride in her daughter’s achievement.

“I never dreamed of this as she pursued this aspect of her career,” Yasuda said. “The nomination was the win.

“It seemed surreal to think of her achieving this honor,” she said. “When she started working in films, it’s not something that you even consider in your wildest dreams, particularly since she had been working in smaller independent films, albeit with famous stars such as Robert Pattinson and Adam Sandler …. We were all on pins and needles the day the (Oscar) nominations were announced and then, of course, were thrilled.”

While the cameras on the Oscar telecasts focus on the big stars in the front rows, Yasuda said being there showed her that most of the attendees were, like herself and Nick, family and friends of the nominees.

“It’s one happy party as we’re all celebrating someone we know,” she said. “You could talk to anyone and ask, ‘Who are you here for?’ or ‘Why are you here?’ It was a lot of fun.

“We were so happy to have the opportunity to share this experience with her,” Yasuda continued. “For her, it was a whirlwind of activities — dinners, lunches, interviews, screenings, etc. and for us, it was such a crazy experience being in Hollywood and being caught up in the moment. Just the ride in the SUV to the Dolby Theater, three lines of black SUVs passing through multiple security stops, including trunk inspections and dogs. And then arriving and hearing her name announced as she stepped out of the car. It was such a happy event with everyone there celebrating the achievement of friends and family.”

Prior to the Oscar ceremony, Bellizzi styled the look of Alysa Liu, the 2026 Olympic figure skating champion and fellow East Bay native, during Liu’s post-Olympics press tour. 

“Lil town sis on the Today show! Fit by me,” Bellizzi wrote in a March 2 Instagram post.

Bellizzi, a Yonsei or fourth-generation Japanese American, grew up attending the Alameda temple’s Dharma School. She participated in Jr. YBA and basketball. After Sunday service, she was part of a group that went to Japanese classical dance practice for six hours.

“Alameda was pretty tight-knit,” Bellizzi said. She still gets together with friends from the Alameda temple and feels like everyone there is like a “cousin.” 

She was close to her grandparents, Kentaro and Jane Yasuda, and considers Revs. Shoyo and the late Zuikei Taniguchi, the former longtime Resident Minister of the Alameda temple, as her grandparents, too.

Kentaro Yasuda lived in Seattle before World War II and was incarcerated at the Minidoka mass detention camp in Idaho during the war years.

After World War II ended and the camps closed, the Yasuda family moved to New York City, where they were early members of the New York Buddhist Church (NYBC) with founding minister Rev. Hozen Seki. 

Kentaro Yasuda was active in the church and daughter Yumi attended NYBC’s Sunday School. She later moved to Alameda and enrolled her children in Dharma School when Bellizzi was 4 years old.

As for her sense of style, Bellizzi said she was always influenced by her mother’s fashion tastes.

‘I loved wearing my mom’s old clothes,” she said. Grandmother Jane Yasuda would invite her to take any of the vintage clothes from the time the family lived in New York City. Bellizzi said there was an emphasis on dressing well whenever she went out of the house. Shopping for old clothes was a family activity.

“Every weekend, we’d hit garage sales and pawn shops,” she said. “That’s our favorite thing to do, still is.”

After graduating from Encinal High School in 2006 in Alameda, she moved to New York City to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Bellizzi worked in the fashion industry for a time, but after working on documentary films for Vice magazine, she was asked to work on a movie. 

Her big break in a major film came in 2017 when she became the assistant costume director for “Good Times,” a crime movie by Josh and Benny Safdie. That would begin a collaboration with the Safdies that continued with “Uncut Gems” in 2019 and “Marty Supreme” in 2025. She said she fell in love with telling stories. 

She has also worked on “War Pony” in 2022, “Next Goal Wins” in 2023 and “The History of Sound” in 2025. 

In addition to Chalamet, Paltrow, Sandler and Pattison, she has worked with actors Oscar Isaac, Michael Fassbender and Elisabeth Moss.

For “Marty Supreme,” Bellizzi tapped into her family history and Japanese heritage to help paint an authentic picture of postwar Japan in the movie’s climactic table tennis match in Tokyo. She studied family photos as part of her research for how to dress the characters.

“The Japanese American experience was difficult post internment and post war,” she wrote in a March 14 Instagram post. “The American influence in Japan was also complicated. It was important for me to show the complexities of war, the beginning of a new era as well as the influence of American culture in Japan through clothing in this film.”

Instead of jumping into another major motion picture, Bellizzi is currently working on an independent film directed by a friend.

“It feels right,” she said. “I’ve been struggling with what movie to do next.”

Bellizzi said her drive comes from her family, particularly from her mother and grandmother.

“My drive comes from our family values,” Bellizzi said in a 2019 article in Amadeus, an arts and lifestyle publication. “I have to be honorable to my family. I can never be a quitter.

“I work really hard and that was instilled in me when I was young,” she said. “I gotta be strong and be like my mother. She is a strong independent woman, she drives me, and I can’t let her down. I can’t let my family down, they can’t be embarrassed by me. It was like a curse when I was younger, but I get it and it’s come to life.”

Bellizzi said she thinks about Buddhist philosophy quite often. When she’s on a movie set, she does a 10-minute meditation using techniques she learned in Dharma School from Rev. Shoyo Taniguchi.

“I’m grateful for everything that has happened,” Bellizzi said, adding as an adult she also thinks about Dharma School and Jr. YBA and remembers teachings about mindfulness and how Buddhists should live their lives.

“As a kid, you don’t think about it, but they kind of stay with you,” she said. “You realize they are important tools to have when you get older and you’re stressed and worried or it gets crazy.”