I'm an Unknown Actress, But Everyone Knows Me

“Woo-. The late one’s here!”

“Our glorious senior is already here and you dare show up twenty minutes before we start?”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“This little bastard.”

Everyone except me looked close with each other. Criticism rained down on the voice actor who had entered last through the door. I quietly looked around the interior.

Back during 〈No Interest Whatsoever〉 and 〈Youth Disqualified!〉, narration had been recorded separately too, but this felt different.

The space behind the glass window was far bigger, and even the microphones were different.

It felt as though the room itself was saying: this is what real dubbing looks like.

“Then before we start recording! Shall we all introduce ourselves first?”

The self-content production team holding cameras spoke up. As always, the protagonist got the first opportunity.

“Hello-. I’m Joy from ! Jeon Ujeong. Everyone, are you ready to meet the rabbit diva?”

As expected from a veteran voice actor, she was different.

She introduced herself in her natural voice first, then immediately switched into the lively voice of rabbit Joy.

“Hellooo-. I’m the trendiest trendsetter of this era, the perfect CEO of . Richard! Wanna become a singer? Then come to me! I’ll make you amaaaazing!”

Next came Richard the tiger, who had the second-largest role after Joy. His booming voice echoed through the recording studio.

‘That projection is insane....’

I’d thought I’d spent quite a long time in theater, but this was the first time I’d met someone with this kind of volume. And every syllable landed perfectly.

“Hiiii-. I’m Kim Seongeun, the greatest black panther musician of this era. Everybo~dy~. If you want to hear my songs, you’ll have to watch , okay? Woo~.”

Starting with Richard, all the other voice actors focused entirely on immersing themselves in their characters. As [N O V E L I G H T] if they wanted to introduce the characters more than themselves.

‘Their names will probably appear in subtitles anyway....’

And if someone had even the slightest interest in voice acting, they’d probably heard these names before at least once. The lineup was stacked.

All eyes turned toward me.

Finally.

At last, it was my turn.

‘If everyone else is speaking through their characters instead of their own names, then I should too.’

I walked toward the wall being used as the filming background and briefly cleared my throat.

Then I opened my mouth toward the camera in front of me.

“Unni! Unni! I’m Lala. I’m in , so you haaaave to come watch it, okay?”

For a moment, the same silence from earlier settled over the room.

‘But this time it’s different.’

I could feel it.

Those weren’t rejecting gazes anymore.

“Wow! You’re pretty good?”

Richard the tiger burst into hearty laughter. Right. This expression, this atmosphere—I knew it well.

“She’s good. Really does sound like a squirrel.”

“Seriously? She’s adorable!”

It was the uncompromising kind of approval that could only be felt on-site.

* * * 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Now that the introduction shots were done, it was time to record.

I stood in front of a silver condenser microphone that came up to chest level. The pop screen filtering out plosive sounds looked unusually dense.

I placed my script on the stand in front of me.

Inside the recording booth right now were me, Joy the lead character, and veteran voice actors playing the panther, tiger, zebra, penguin, and others.

They would record several scenes like this first for the recording-site video that JC ENM and Disney planned to release as original content, then afterward move on to solo recordings.

‘Today I need to get as many usable shots as possible.’

Since my role was small, today’s recording would be all I had.

“Aren’t you nervous? Though I guess after how well you did earlier, maybe you aren’t?”

The voice actor playing the villain tiger asked me. I answered honestly.

“No.... I’m extremely nervous....”

The voice actors around me stopped halfway through putting on their headphones and laughed.

Good. Even I thought that sounded cute.

This scene involved Joy and her flying squirrel younger siblings Lulu, Lala, Kiki, and Pipi together. Except for Lala, the other siblings didn’t have many lines, so apparently one person was voicing two roles.

‘Everyone here except me is a veteran.’

I absolutely couldn’t mess up. If problems started because of me, there would be complaints from the beginning. The second I slipped up, both the recording and filming would need to be redone.

I remembered Professor Geum Bitgang’s teachings.

Strength filled my lower abdomen.

“We’ll begin now. Please let us know when you’re ready.”

My eyes met the audio director’s through the glass window, his headset already on. Then I spotted Team Leader Seong filming my self-content.

“Ready?”

The voice actor playing Joy beside me asked. Her tone was slightly prickly.

“Yes. I’m ready.”

After giving me a quick once-over, she faced forward and nodded toward the audio director.

“00:18. Joy and siblings scene, starting.”

The animation began playing on the large screen in front of us.

The peaceful green scenery of Sweet Town appeared before rapidly zooming inward. A two-story wooden cabin came into view.

[Joy’s House]

Above it was a + sign.

[ + Lulu Lala Kiki Pipi and our beloved mom and dad our family home!]

The handwriting was extremely crooked. Since all the siblings had apparently written it together, every letter looked different.

In the yard, the father mowed the lawn while inside the house the mother baked carrot pie in the kitchen. Then the camera naturally moved up to the second floor.

[Absolutely

DO NOT ENTER!!!]

A terrifying warning sign hung on Joy’s bedroom door. Joy lay asleep wearing an eye mask.

This was where it started.

“Unni!”

“Unniunniunn-ni!”

“Un~ni~!”

The bedroom door burst open and the flying squirrel siblings rushed inside immediately. It almost felt like I could hear the smack of their bodies landing.

‘My turn now.’

Lala, the last one to fly in, spoke as though pouring out her excitement all at once.

“Unniunniunni. What should we play today?”

I gave the words rhythm, lifting the ending sharply upward.

“How about an adventure to pick wild raspberries? Making the carrot jam you love sounds fun too! Or should we go to Mister Sam’s place and learn snail yo-yos?”

Then I delivered the lines quickly, almost as though fast-forwarded, while making sure none of the pronunciation got swallowed.

‘I deliberately lowered the final line by half a tone compared to my usual voice.’

To give the speech rhythm. Natural cadence came not only from speed, but also from pitch.

“Yayyy, this is exciting!”

And lastly, to increase the volume for this part—

‘If you shout right after speaking in a high pitch, it sounds way too shrill.’

On screen, flying squirrel Lala wrapped herself tightly around her older sister’s face.

“....”

Joy, who had been lying still on the bed, suddenly shot upright. The other siblings tumbled right off the bed.

But Lala—only I remained attached to her sister’s face.

“Get ouuut!”

An overwhelming volume. The voice actor beside me playing Joy shouted thunderously. Even Lala attached to her face got blown away.

Matching the timing, I cried out,

“Kyaaaah!”

* * *

Everyone was surprised by the unexpected situation.

The atmosphere outside the recording booth loosened considerably once they realized Han Yeoreum was far better than expected. They’d assumed she’d be decent, but apparently hadn’t imagined she would surpass the standard this much.

“Yes. That last one, just slightly—half a beat faster. The ‘I’ll help you’ line, stretch out the ‘heeelp’ part a little more. Keep the tone the same, just add a bit more speed.”

But there was one person who wasn’t surprised at all.

The sound director of .

At first, he’d reacted the same as everyone else. The first thing he’d said upon hearing Han Yeoreum was joining Disney’s animation dubbing cast had been—

“Ugh.”

As someone who lived his entire life wearing headphones, his hearing was extremely sensitive. How many celebrities riding on fame had ruined dubbed versions over the years? Too many to count.

“I was wondering why they hadn’t shown up lately....”

It felt like the inevitable had finally arrived. For the past few years, thanks to several historically terrible celebrity dub disasters, the trend had moved away from using celebrities. But Han Yeoreum belonged to JC ENM.

“The whole ‘Disney personally requested her’ thing is obvious bullshit too. Seriously.”

To him, it was painfully obvious that Disney and JC ENM were pulling media strings together.

“At least her role’s small, thank god.”

A character like Lala could probably be brushed off as merely cute. He’d seen a few clips from 〈The Great Garland〉 before. Han Yeoreum did have good projection.

Still grateful she wasn’t playing the lead, he turned on music. It was Shim Juhwan’s new song. Ever since release day he’d been replaying it nonstop, yet somehow never got tired of it.

“Oh, right....”

Han Yeoreum’s face appeared on the album cover beside Myeong Jeha. The sound director knew her appearance in Shim Juhwan’s new music video had become a hot topic. He just hadn’t bothered watching it.

Because he was an otaku.

He wasn’t particularly interested in 3D.

Input: Shim Juhwan

But for some reason, now he wanted to see it.

Half impulse, half curiosity.

Before he knew it, he’d clicked on the video that had already surpassed five million views.

The scene transitions, the composition—everything was absurdly luxurious for a ballad singer’s music video. Knowing every second of footage cost a fortune, he listened even more intently to the sound.

And then—

-“...Why?”

Han Yeoreum’s voice rang out, and layered over it came the instruments and Shim Juhwan’s voice.