Nam Yeonsu, who had been sitting comfortably in his chair, must not have even noticed me coming over to sit beside him, because he turned to me in surprise.
“Uh, huh?”
“See, it works if you do it.”
Nam Yeonsu wore an expression like he was dreaming, then slowly nodded at my words.
“Yeah, it was really amazing. This is the first time I’ve acted however I wanted. I still can’t believe it.”
“That’s the charm of acting.”
“Haha, is it? Siwoo, do you always act with this kind of feeling?”
“It feels good. Aren’t you acting because it’s fun?”
“…Because it’s fun. Yeah, right. I act because it’s fun. I’m a top-class actor.”
“Right?”
No idea about “top class,” though.
With a face fully flushed, Nam Yeonsu spoke earnestly.
With his cheeks red and beads of sweat forming on his forehead.
Only now did he look like his real age of eight.
“Earlier, the director said to Wooju, instead of talking like this, to talk like this, slowly, with emotion in the tone, right? After hearing that, I thought, what if Haeseong talks like this?”
Maybe he was done soaking in the afterglow by himself, because Nam Yeonsu soon began excitedly spilling out everything he felt while filming.
He really looked like a kid experiencing something fun for the first time, so I listened with satisfaction.
Ah, that scene.
I thought Ji Haeseong was coming at me more than I expected.
So that was because he acted with that thought in mind.
“So that’s why your tone changed earlier?”
“Huh! You could tell? And then it felt like the lines suddenly came alive. Right, Siwoo, you felt it too?”
All worked up, Nam Yeonsu chattered in a tone he had never shown before.
Normally, the moment filming ended, he would just stare into the script.
He changed so much it made me wonder if he was the same person.
“Yeah. Right. I felt good when we filmed that scene too.”
“Right! Yeah. I was really sad that we got an okay in one take for that scene.”
Maybe because we did not mix in ad libs and only adjusted the tone a little.
It also played a big role that both Nam Yeonsu and I understood Cha Ilnam’s direction perfectly.
Still, to think he could even feel disappointed that filming ended early.
Seeing that, my mischievous side kicked in and I grinned.
“Wow, is that the statement of a genius actor? I should go tell the other directors.”
“What! No, Siwoo. I’m saying it only to you.”
At my saying I would tell, Nam Yeonsu sprang up from his seat and tried to stop me.
He looked desperately earnest, like, what if you tell our secret.
“People were already saying today our shoot time got really long and the audio director’s arm is going to fall off. I should tell them it got longer because of you, Yeonsu hyung.”
Seeing him, it was funny, so I did not stop and teased him more.
Then the strength drained right out of Nam Yeonsu’s hand that had been gripping my arm.
Huh?
When I turned to look, hm, he was glaring at me with eyes full of resentment.
To look at me like that without even knowing I’m his lifesaver.
“…Siwoo, you’re starting to talk more and more like Wooju.”
“No way. That’s your imagination.”
“Really?”
“Really, really.”
At my shameless words, Nam Yeonsu tilted his head but still begged me not to tell.
I answered generously that I would think about it.
“It’s your imagination that I talk like Wooju, but have you heard? Among actors, they say that if you get immersed in acting, there are people who start to become similar to that character.”
“Really?”
When I brought up other actors’ stories, Nam Yeonsu’s eyes sparkled.
Seeing that, I could finally be sure.
I had realized something while watching him act, and just now, watching him be happy about acting, but this kid…
He is incredibly sincere about acting.
Maybe as much as I am?
“Mm. So you’ve never seen interviews with famous actors saying that after filming a movie, they couldn’t get out of the role for a while?”
“Woaah. That’s cool.”
“Right?”
In the end, what I mean is that I’m going to keep teasing Nam Yeonsu going forward, like our relationship in the drama.
But Nam Yeonsu did not know that and listened to every word with fascination.
“You can’t even watch actors’ interviews? They show them on TV.”
“I didn’t know they did that. Dad doesn’t like turning on the TV because he says I always just watch cartoons and play.”
Seems like his dad is unbelievably strict.
For a moment I almost thought of Duke Hugo Battenberg again, but I barely shook my head and brushed away the gloomy thought.
“Aren’t things like the news educational? Try asking him to let you watch, even for a few hours a day. Ah! Tell him you want to monitor.”
“Monitor? Uh, like Director Cha Ilnam does?”
At my words, Nam Yeonsu, startled, pointed at the directing team gathered in front of the main monitor.
No, that is called monitoring too, but…
I worried about how to explain it, then continued.
“Hyung, you’ve been in a lot of works up to now, right? When they air, you don’t watch?”
“Huh? Uh…. I watch here and there sometimes. But they say I’m not old enough to watch. Dad says I should watch later and study…. So I mostly watch the scenes Dad decided.”
What is he talking about?
Why can’t an actor watch his own work!
The decisive reason I chose to be in dramas instead of only stage plays was exactly this.
On stage, I can see my scene partner and what is happening on stage, but I can’t see myself acting.
Before, I never had any thoughts about that.
I thought it was just something natural.
But after watching the video of Moon Heeseong’s play performance, and after filming my acting on camera for the first time at Moon Heeseong’s house and watching that footage, my thinking changed.
It’s true I had bad prejudice about dramas, but how appealing is it that I can watch my own acting on TV!
And I can watch my acting in a TV drama I’m completely absorbed in.
While thinking, I decided to try something new, and also to see my acting with my own eyes, and started filming dramas.
And the result was extremely satisfying.
Being able to watch my acting together with other people made me so happy.
But to forbid that?
“Huh?”
“Instead, Dad watches and explains it to me. In this episode, you appeared little, you appeared a lot. Which part wasn’t good… stuff like that.”
Just hearing it, that’s not praise…?
Inside, I clicked my tongue.
He can’t even watch the broadcast he’s in.
Then that means he can’t even properly confirm what his facial expressions or acting looked like.
“Just say it. Say you want to watch this drama. It’s a family drama, right? It’s not some provocative subject, and I’m grown up now, so I’m going to watch what I’m in too. How about it? That’s monitoring.”
“Mm, but isn’t this rated 15 and up?”
“…If you’re with your parents, you can watch all of it.”
My god.
It’s at home, and I’ve never seen someone enforce that so strictly in my life.
It’s not like you’re going to a theater to watch it.
Even at the theater, if you go with your mom and dad, or your uncle, they let you in!
“Mmm. Siwoo, do you monitor all the time too?”
“Huh? Yeah, of course.”
It’s the most important.
What acting was good, and which parts were lacking.
How important it is for an actor to be objective about themselves.
And there is one more thing you absolutely have to check.
How well you looked.
How much you appeared today.
I was watching the live broadcast every week while getting showered with praise from my parents as we watched together.
These days, that time was the most important time for me.
Sometimes we had no choice but to watch our drama on set, but that was good in its own way too.
Because instead of Mom and Dad, my uncle and the staff praised me as much as they wanted.
Even on weekdays, we always turn it on to match the rebroadcast time.
Because Mom really likes it.
And! If you monitor, then later when you look up articles, you can immediately connect it to how viewers reacted.
Well, it’s not like I only watch the drama I’m in.
“Okay. I’ll try telling him. If I say you watch too, Dad won’t say anything.”
“Good! From now on, let’s keep acting like today. Then it’ll be really fun, right?”
With the feeling that everything was solved, I spoke lightly.
But at my words, Nam Yeonsu’s expression dimmed.
“Mmm, I hope so.”
Ah.
Now that I think about it, I only tore up one script, not all of them.
When Nam Yeonsu goes home, he will probably receive the next script again, with his father’s notes packed densely all over it.
That bitter expression looked like he knew that.
An expression like he is already foreseeing his future, like today is the last day.
I barely swallowed the sigh that rose up.
Because I can’t sigh in front of Nam Yeonsu.
After dying once and coming back to life, there is a saying that hits you desperately.
It’s an extremely common saying, but it’s that no one lives my life for me.
It might be hard words for Nam Yeonsu, who is only eight.
For me too, it hits desperately because it’s a life lived twice.
But the time flowing now is fair to everyone.
It doesn’t compensate for my past time, and it doesn’t take responsibility for it.
Put another way, it means I can’t live someone else’s life for them either.
“Still, today I was a little scared, but when I tried it, it was fun. I’m glad I learned there’s acting like this too.”
While watching Nam Yeonsu force a bright smile, I ended up muttering as if without thinking.
“Hyung isn’t someone’s persona.”
“Huh…?”
At my sudden words, Nam Yeonsu blinked.
Persona.
In the film industry right now, I’ve heard it’s used in a positive meaning, referring to a film director’s ‘alter ego-like’ actor they’ve always worked with.
But I remember seeing on an educational program that it’s not actually such a good meaning.
It came from the TV that’s on all day, so I let it go in one ear at the time, but looking at it now, it fits Nam Yeonsu exactly.
They say this mask called a persona is formed and strengthened through experiences like family education and social education.
The origin of persona is said to mean the mask actors wore in Greek mask plays.
But that was on stage.
When you come down off the stage, shouldn’t an actor take off the persona and live as ‘himself’?
But watching Nam Yeonsu now, it felt like he was always wearing a mask.
And not a mask he made, not a mask carrying his own will, but a mask someone else forced onto him.
In Nam Yeonsu’s case, it seemed like his strict father was building it firmly.
Wearing a mask in everyday life, not on stage, and living as someone’s alter ego makes no sense.
To waste your life as someone’s puppet, alter ego, shadow, Nam Yeonsu’s talent is far too precious.
“Do what you want to do. Of all the expressions I’ve seen from you, today was the coolest.”
With a frustrated, stifled feeling, I ended up speaking in a stronger tone than usual.
“You looked like a top-class actor, or something.”
At my last words, Nam Yeonsu looked like he’d been struck by something.
Then he fell silent, sinking into thought.
That expression looked confused, and somehow also looked sad.
That when you crack out of an egg, you lose less than what you lose while trapped inside the egg.
You can only know that after you crack the egg and come out.
Just like how after I met theater and started acting, I found a new life.
I want Nam Yeonsu to start a new kind of acting too.
Surely, it can’t be that, like me, Nam Yeonsu can only live doing the acting he wants in the next life, not this one.
I don’t think one day of experience can completely crack the egg.
But looking at his expression, it seems like at least putting a crack in it succeeded.
I sincerely hoped that Nam Yeonsu would soon crack the egg and come out.
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