Pen and Paper Translations

Andrew kept sneering at me like I was a con man, but then, as if something that happened before came back to him, he suddenly raised his voice.

“People who have zero respect for actors and only think about damned money, if they’re not con artists then what are they? Damn it!”

Only after he spewed every kind of curse, mixing in filthy language, did he seem to calm down. He closed his eyes and lit the cheap cigar next to him.

“Are you done now?”

“What have you been listening to all this time. Are you bad at English?”

“It’s because I understand too well.”

“Do you not know what ‘get out’ means? Do I have to say ‘just go’ for you to understand?”

“No, I told you, I understand perfectly.”

At my words, Andrew tilted his head and blew harsh smoke right into my face.

Like it was a provocation, he watched my reaction.

I had no intention of falling for his provocation, so I waved the smoke away with my hand and smiled.

“Then why are you still here? Are you here to clean or something?”

“If you’ll appear in my film in exchange for me cleaning, I’ll gladly do it for you.”

At my words, Andrew coughed as if the smoke he had exhaled got caught in his throat.

Then he snorted, pointing in order at a beer can, the cigar, and even the damp potato chips.

“There’s nothing to clean. There’s order, in its own way. Leaving things where your hand can reach is the best. Everything I want right now, I can grab just by reaching out, see?”

“I know that very well.”

Even after all these years, the memory of living alone in a room this filthy was still vivid.

Liquor bottles, an overflowing ashtray, and stains everywhere.

Andrew’s trailer was even more like the room I used to live in alone.

While I was briefly lost in memories of the past, Andrew kept sucking on his cigar, and as if he realized his half-baked provocation would not work, he blew the smoke upward instead.

“But you can’t grab what you really need.”

“What?”

“My next film’s script.”

I said that while looking at the bag Andrew had handed back to me earlier.

“I don’t need something like that.”

“You’re going to judge without even looking? Once you see it, you might want it desperately.”

When I said it with a smile, Andrew frowned as if displeased.

“I’m not doing films.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“That’s none of your business. A guy I met today is going to stick his nose in that too?”

“I thought I’d gotten a little close with you, Andrew. We even rode in the same taxi. Your face is familiar now too.”

When I said it with a smile, Andrew frowned and said,

“What a joke. Gollum might be familiar. My face being familiar, my ass. How is my face familiar?”

Andrew grumbled while staring at a half torn <The Lord of the Rings> poster.

“You played Gollum. Then shouldn’t that character be considered you?”

“No! No! Did my face show up as is in the movie? No, it didn’t! Damn it, nobody knows! But those trash British actors’ union people sure know! Did you see the red letters outside?”

“Yes.”

[England’s shame as an actor.]

Those words written in a dark blood like red cursive sent a chill down my spine.

“They’re calling me a shame. Those trash bastards. Back when I went to Hollywood they were just butting in and raising hell, and when I came back they said they knew it would happen. Hah. If they knew, they could’ve told me sooner.”

There is no phrase as cruel as “I knew it would happen” to someone who has failed.

Words that are bone deep, like rubbing salt into a failed person’s wound.

But on Andrew’s face, more than anger, the emotion that stood out was emptiness.

“So. Just go. It’s a waste of time anyway. One damned film, <The Lord of the Rings>, was enough. And if you need some guy who speaks English for a Korean movie, take anyone. Why did you even come looking for me?”

“In the motion capture technology that appears in my film, I need you—”

“What?!”

Andrew screamed before I could even finish.

“You bastard… Are you messing with me right now? What have you been listening to up until just now?”

“I heard everything. Even so, I need your motion capture acting.”

“Fuck…”

Andrew tossed the empty beer can onto the floor, then pulled a new can out from the stack in the fridge.

“My acting? You mean Gollum’s acting? Is that even my acting? I’m an actor too. An actor with a face. But it’s not like people cursed my acting, right? I stuck weird crap all over my face and acted my ass off. And that still failed. And now you’re telling me to do that again? You bastard…”

Andrew’s reaction was contradictory.

He acted like he had no attachment to the job of acting, yet he got irritated that his face did not appear when motion capture was mentioned, and he kept repeating himself.

From the way he said, “I’m an actor too,” I could tell how attached he was to being an actor.

He wanted to be an actor whose face was known, but he could not.

I knew that fact pained him even more, but thinking I had to make him even more emotional, I pressed harder.

“I thought you said you were quitting acting.”

“What?”

Staring at me like he could not believe it, Andrew said,

“Then do it one last time, and quit. If you’re going to quit acting, shouldn’t you throw away the pride you had as an actor too? You’re quitting anyway, right? From the look of it, you still have some lingering attachment.”

“I decide that, you damned bastard. Who the hell are you to judge my pride?”

“Of course you’re the one who decides. But watching you get shaken by something a stranger says, it doesn’t look like you’re going to quit acting at all. If anything, it looks closer to you being desperate to act.”

When Andrew clenched his teeth, his jaw muscles tightened hard.

“…Shut up and get out. I’m not saying it twice now.”

“I was planning to stand up anyway.”

I got up from the chair and stepped out of the shabby trailer without even saying goodbye.

A kind of battle of pride.

He was not persuaded yet, but if I clung any more here, the image I had built in Andrew would collapse too.

Then even if he did come on board for filming, Andrew, thinking he was above me, would not move the way I wanted.

“Don’t ever think about coming back.”

“How about we bet on who comes looking for who first?”

“Quit talking bullshit and get out.”

---

Andrew watched the back of the East Asian director as he left, slamming the door, for a moment through a small window.

“Crazy bastard.”

After cursing a few more times, Andrew lay back on the sagging sofa.

Beer in one hand, a cheap cigar in the other.

Thinking this kind of life might not be so bad, he closed his eyes for a moment, then reached for the potato chips beside him.

Clatter!

“Ah, fuck…”

Andrew grabbed his forehead and sat up.

And just as he picked up a broom and dragged his creaking body over to clean up the broken dish, the bag Gyeong Chanhyeon had left caught his eye.

“He left this behind? Careless bastard…”

After cleaning up all the pieces, Andrew pretended not to see the bag and lay back down on the sofa again.

He tried sucking on the cigar again, but in the damp weather, it seemed the flame had gone out and nothing would draw.

“Damn it. Nothing works.”

A shitty day.

Today was exactly that kind of day for Andrew. Everything he did got tangled, and his head throbbed.

He threw the cigar, damp and unable to light properly, into the trash can, but it hit the rim and bounced back out.

Seeing that, Andrew closed his eyes as if he had reached some kind of enlightenment, trying not to think about anything at all.

But as if today would not even allow him to have no thoughts, Gyeong Chanhyeon’s bag kept shimmering in front of his eyes.

“Damn it…”

In the end, Andrew sat up and opened Gyeong Chanhyeon’s bag.

“What… what is this?”

Blinking in confusion, Andrew stared at the bag filled with money.

And when he took out the things inside, a thick script popped out from beneath the cash.

And a scrap of paper slipped out of that script with a soft flick.

After drawing in a breath at the sizable amount, Andrew unfolded the scrap of paper.

[If you read the script and it’s good, please contact me.]

Below those words were Gyeong Chanhyeon’s number and email.

“What is this money, too?”

Andrew fell into deep thought.

If he had left behind an amount this large, he should have come back right away, but he did not look like he intended to return.

It had already been over an hour since he left.

Even at a glance, it was at least 400 euros.

With this much, he could buy good beer and cigars for a few days.

“I’m not some beggar bastard…”

Even as Andrew muttered that under his breath, his hands were already busy scooping up the money.

“No. No. This isn’t right.”

Andrew smacked his right hand with his left and shook his head.

Then he picked up his phone and dialed Gyeong Chanhyeon’s number.

After a short ring, Gyeong Chanhyeon answered.

-Does that mean I already won the bet?

At Gyeong Chanhyeon’s playful voice, Andrew snapped back in an irritated voice.

“That’s not it. You left your bag behind. There’s money in here too.”

Deliberately looking away from where the bag was, Andrew spoke.

-Ah, right. I put the exchanged cash in there. I pulled the taxi fare out of it earlier…

“Yeah. Come get it.”

At Andrew’s words, Gyeong Chanhyeon went silent for a moment.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?”

-Ah, well… It’s gotten a bit late. Would it be okay if I come tomorrow?

“No. Come right now. Hurry up and get this script out of my place. Or can I just throw it away?”

-I’m in the middle of contacting another actor right now. I’m going to give them that script, so don’t throw it away. Just leave it there.

“What? Another actor?”

Without realizing it, Andrew frowned.

-Andrew, I’m not the type to grab someone who doesn’t want to do it and force them. I didn’t want pre production to lose a lot of time over casting, so I looked into other actors too. And there was someone else in England, so…

At Gyeong Chanhyeon’s words, Andrew said as if it was absurd.

“No, an hour ago you said you needed me.”

-You said you weren’t acting. I never even imagined you would give up acting completely.

At Gyeong Chanhyeon’s words, Andrew felt like he had been played, but he quickly acted like he was fine and said,

“Fine. Then come in the morning and take it.”

-Yes. I also have exchanged cash in my suitcase, so tomorrow I’ll buy a whole box of beer and bring it. That should be a fair fee for leaving it with you for a day, right?

“Do whatever.”

After hanging up with Gyeong Chanhyeon, Andrew kept tossing and turning with an uneasy feeling, like he had been tricked somehow.

Hours passed, long past when he should have been asleep, but his mind only felt more awake. Andrew got up.

“If it’s a script made by some crazy bastard, it’ll definitely be boring. It won’t be fun.”

Andrew ran his eyes once over the cover of the script binder, which read <Space Vagabond>.

[The first Korean director to win in an unofficial section at Cannes with <Jawol>: Gyeong Chanhyeon]

“Huh?”

Andrew, who had been a stage actor rather than a film actor to begin with, had not even the slightest interest in film festivals.

But he knew how famous the Cannes Film Festival was.

He wondered if there was really a director who would appeal this hard on his own script binder, then pushed aside the stray thoughts and opened the script.

Maybe because the English translation had been done quite cleanly, even though it was Korean dialogue, he could properly understand the unique nuances and atmosphere.

Around the time the early character build up finished, the villain appeared, the one Gyeong Chanhyeon wanted to solve through motion capture.

‘Nixroad.’

At the role, skilled at political maneuvering and agitation, intending to capture the protagonists and use them to boost his approval ratings, Andrew felt genuinely interested.

“Why is this fun…?”

It was on a completely different level from the butchered <The Lord of the Rings> script.

If you were going to damage the original and still try to make it fun, it needed to at least be fun, but <The Lord of the Rings> was the worst trash of trash films.

Especially the charm of Gollum, which could have been used properly as a scene stealer, had disappeared completely.

But Nixroad was different.

The character’s appeal came through even from the script alone. Because of that appeal, just as Andrew was imagining exactly what that alien would look like in his head—

Thud.

At the sound of something falling from between the pages, he looked down at the floor.