I'm an Unknown Actress, But Everyone Knows Me

* * *

Today was finally the day we headed to Hyehwa.

“Yeoreum, this one’s a bit different from what you’ve done so far, so it might feel awkward at first.”

Manager Choi said it as if to encourage me, hands on the steering wheel. I still hadn’t let go of the script.

“But since it’s the first day! It’s fine! Just starting off with good energy alone! We’ve gotta go, let’s go, let’s go!”

It was nice that she was always positive. But contrary to what Manager Choi said, the script reading mattered far more on the first day.

‘You have to seize the initiative.’

A rising actor who came down riding Professor Geum Bitgang’s parachute, a green rookie backed by a major agency. There was no way someone like me would be looked upon kindly.

‘And this is the theater scene, on top of that.’

It was a world that prided itself on competing purely on skill.

‘I’d bet my right hand they’ve already gathered, torn me apart, and bonded over it.’

From the moment I walked in, hostility tempered by a subtle sense of unity would be aimed straight at me.

‘It’s not that I don’t understand that feeling....’

But I had no intention of just letting it be. One way or another, I had to make them acknowledge me. If the chemistry was off from the very first day, the quality of the stage would drop noticeably.

In the end, it was work done by people. If something twisted in a corner of the heart, a major accident was bound to happen at least once.

“Do you think so?”

“Of courrrse!”

Unni really is... naïve.

‘They’re all going to hate me. What do you mean, let’s go.’

I could be sure just by skimming the cast list. Especially Tak senior, whom I’d known in my previous life.

“Hey, Han Yeoreum!!! Do you think you can stand on stage like that!!!”

She was a senior with an excellent memory. As serious as she was about acting, she lived with the script clenched in her hand at all times.

She’d probably aimed for the lead in . That much anger toward me was inevitable.

‘Tak senior is famously difficult.’

She was someone who wasn’t lenient even with herself, strict to the extreme. With Tak senior, who wouldn’t tolerate even a single second of a hitch in a play, my preparation had to be flawless.

‘I memorized the script the day I got it.’

At first, only my own lines. Then I ended up memorizing the entire script. Theater was structured so that if one person made a mistake, everyone else had to cover for it. You couldn’t let the audience catch even a slip.

‘If only to look good to the revolving-door audience.’

The so-called veterans. I wanted to show those revolving-door audience members—amateur critics of the theater and musical scene—what kind of person Han Yeoreum was.

I recalled the long days of living as a nobody, when my name was never properly called even once.

“We’re here, Yeoreum! Unni’ll park and come in.”

How long had my thoughts gone on? I slowly opened my eyes at my manager unni’s voice.

I looked at Evergreen Art Center. Beyond it was the stage I’d once come to at night, alone, and touched with my own hands.

“Yes. I’ll go.”

At last, I could stand {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} at the very center of this place.

* * *

What is the most important thing in comedy? Everyone would answer differently.

“Unexpected absurdity?”

You could make people burst out laughing by throwing out an answer completely unrelated to the question.

“Facial expressions!”

Especially in comedy, this was a crucial point. Exaggerate your facial muscles just a little, and laughter would erupt here and there. The very act of choosing comedy proved that the audience was already ‘ready to laugh.’

“You have to use your body well!”

Light, quick physical movement was also important. You had to deliver those images that immediately came to mind when people thought of comical motion. Within the clichés, the audience instinctively grasped it.

Which character was the one meant to bring laughter. Just recognizing that made laughter come more easily.

‘But the most important thing isn’t any of those three.’

Anyone who’d watched theater for a long time knew. True comedy wasn’t decided by those things.

“Noona, do you love me?”

“....”

“....”

“I do, I do.”

It was none other than push and pull. It looked the easiest, yet was the hardest. You either realized it through insane amounts of practice, or you were born with it.

Han Yeoreum was the latter. At just twenty-two, an actor who’d debuted the moment she turned twenty couldn’t possibly have accumulated some extraordinary amount of practice.

And yet, Han Yeoreum slipped pauses into the middle of her lines with ghostlike precision.

‘Silence means the actor is flustered.’

From a character who seemed to be laying their inner thoughts bare, the audience laughed at ease. It was different from other genres. Comedy approached the audience openly, without difficulty.

“...No, an academy like that?”

Even with the same line, Han Yeoreum knew how to twist it slightly. When you’re laughing and chatting with a friend and sudden silence falls—that very next beat is when even bigger laughter comes.

“There would be. Yes. Of course! There would be.”

With her distinctive diction, Han Yeoreum carried the atmosphere along. It was the first day of the script reading. Han Yeoreum didn’t make a single line mistake. If anything, the existing actors stumbled over their lines several times.

‘Everyone feels different.’

Actors who’d been snickering until this morning, saying they wanted to see how good Han Yeoreum really was, now wore different expressions. Faces drawn tight with tension.

They were all people who’d spent years here, toughened by experience. They couldn’t afford to be pushed aside by someone from web dramas.

This was a battle of pride.

‘Different.’

But... Han Yeoreum was different somehow. Each and every line was seasoned.

The transition was natural—from the clumsy graduating senior Jin Jinju to the rookie Jin Jinju who’d completed intern academy training and entered her probationary period.

‘Even acting alongside Geum Bitgang....’

She didn’t get pushed back at all. If anything, every time the two matched their timing, the sound that rang through the rehearsal room was almost excessively good. To the point that the actor who spoke next looked shabby.

‘If it’s already like this with just a script reading.’

Tak Jeongyun grew tense. The script clenched in her hand crumpled.

If Han Yeoreum, who seemed to play with the entire field using nothing but her voice, were let loose on stage, what would happen then?

Without realizing it, Tak Jeongyun bit down on her lip.

* * *

“Let’s take a short break-!”

After the first script reading, which lasted an hour and thirty minutes, all the actors were completely drained. When Geum Bitgang left her seat, Han Yeoreum followed after her.

“Want a cigarette?”

“If you give me one, Professor, I’ll start today.”

“Cut the habitual flattery.”

Geum Bitgang snorted softly and took out a cigarette. She drew in deeply, then released the stale air in one breath.

“So. How was the reading.”

“...Thank you for going easy on me today.”

As expected, Han Yeoreum had noticed. Geum Bitgang had deliberately matched herself to Han Yeoreum as much as possible.

Even while delivering lines, she’d observed closely. Han Yeoreum knew exactly how theatrical projection worked. She understood how to bring words out of her mouth. That alone was quite satisfying.

“What about your analysis this time?”

She cut straight to the point. Han Yeoreum, standing beside her, answered calmly.

“You mean the characters?”

“Yes. The characters.”

“If that’s it, then all of them.”

“...What?”

Geum Bitgang forgot to exhale her cigarette smoke for a moment. Thick white smoke billowed out.

“What I think is most important in this play is timing.”

For an instant, the disciple’s face across from her blurred, then slowly came into focus.

“So I analyzed the sections where each character could be teased.”

Where had she seen that expression before? Geum Bitgang thought for a moment. Then, all of a sudden, she realized.

It was her own face from the past. The face she used to wear when she practiced fiercely, clung day and night, and finally dissected a single work completely, down to its smallest parts.

The Geum Bitgang of her twenties stood before her.

“Confident, aren’t you?”

Without realizing it, Geum Bitgang toyed with the cigarette burning down between her fingers, forgetting to bring it to her lips.

“Alright, then. Run wild to your heart’s content.”

The impertinent disciple smiled faintly.

“Don’t go easy on a single one.”

Geum Bitgang smiled back at her.