The Act of Not Being Able to Act
Though Jong-woo had said his goodbyes, he tagged along to the script reading anyway.
"It's his first day. I should at least shadow him for a day or two of filming later on. Gam-jae's barely started working myself, honestly."
The reading was being held on the third floor. The door at the end of the hallway stood wide open, and beside it, the drama's title — Dear God — was posted in large letters.
Below that, the names of the director, the writer, and the leads were listed, with the supporting cast's names arranged beneath them according to the size of their roles.
"Yeon-woo. There he is, Yeon-woo."
Jong-woo pointed at Yeon-woo's name, sitting fairly high up the list, and beamed with pride. Eventually he pulled out his phone entirely and took a photo of it.
"When the show starts airing, I'm posting this on the official SNS."
Sa Gam-jae, who had been standing quietly to the side, asked, "Why wait until it airs?"
"Ah, right. We deliberately never ran a press release about Yeon-woo joining a drama. Not hiding it exactly, but we didn't push it either. Most people probably have no idea he's even in one. People don't go digging unless your name's in a headline, and it's even worse for idols — you slip just your own name into the cast list without the group name, and hardly anyone notices."
"Why do it that way?"
"A lot of people hate seeing idols act. And we've already fought with Oh Jung-shin's fans once. They might pretend not to be fans and tear Yeon-woo's acting to shreds."
Sa Gam-jae nodded without a word.
Strange man, Rembrary thought. But at least he seems willing to learn the manager's job. He studied Sa Gam-jae a moment longer, then opened the door and stepped inside.
The room was fairly spacious, with desks pushed together into one long rectangle in the center. Chairs lined the walls on either side of the desks as well.
A couple of people carried cameras, but most appeared to be actors, managers, and assorted staff.
There were so many chairs that Rembrary faltered for a moment — until, mercifully, he noticed that each one had a name attached. He pulled out the chair marked Im Seo (Woo Yeon-woo) and sat down.
People's eyes converged on him, but he neither shrank from the attention nor paid it any mind.
Greets. Greets. Greets. It was Jong-woo, watching him, who panicked and hastily fired off a text.
The frantic typing had produced a typo-riddled mess, but mercifully the point came through. Rembrary did understand that ignoring one's surroundings entirely was also a failing, and so at last he rose and greeted the people around him.
And from then on, the greetings, the greetings, the greetings continued without end.
Some smiled and returned them warmly — "You're Woo Yeon-woo, right? I've been watching Sing Survival" — while others simply flicked their eyes up and down him once and turned away.
One reporter abruptly asked if he could do a quick interview, and another asked to take his picture, then, having taken it, didn't say a single word to him.
Before long, yet more people came filing in, and Rembrary scarcely had a chance to settle properly into his chair.
Maeng Woo-shin arrived ten minutes before the reading began. When he saw Rembrary, he flinched almost imperceptibly — but showed nothing else on his face.
After Maeng Woo-shin came a languid, effortlessly beautiful woman, and the way people buzzed around her suggested she was a famous actress.
Not long after those two arrived, Screenwriter Shim Gyeong — whom Rembrary had met before with CEO Im — appeared, followed by a man Rembrary had never seen before.
From the way people greeted him, he seemed to be the director.
That should be everyone by now.
When Rembrary saw the door close behind the director, he concluded that the greeting marathon was finally over, and only then took his seat.
"All right, let's start with introductions. We'll go around clockwise, beginning with the director."
The people gathered for the script reading watched Woo Yeon-woo with keen interest. They were all finely attuned to fame, and they made it a point to always track who was on the tip of everyone's tongue.
And Woo Yeon-woo had been the most talked-about celebrity of the past month or two. Actor, manager, journalist — everyone in the room knew his face and his name.
But since he hadn't made that name in a good way, their attention was closer to lurid curiosity than anything else. They studied him closely, wondering just how the infamously rotten Woo Yeon-woo would cause trouble this time, and whether someone who had apparently sneaked in as a supporting cast member could actually act.
A few even toyed with the thought of quietly leaking news of his appearance here to a reporter or a loose-lipped friend.
Before long, however, that interest sputtered and died. Woo Yeon-woo was far quieter than the rumors suggested. His role had no lines, and he himself did nothing outlandish. The reading proceeded as smoothly and uneventfully as any script reading ever does.
A garden landscaped like a painting. The air around is peaceful.
Deungbaek and his classmate from seminary sit side by side on a bench, each holding a disposable coffee cup.
Classmate: Your life is one perfectly straight line.
Deungbaek: Because God always shows me the path forward.
Classmate: Exactly. Why does He only show you?
Deungbaek: He shows you too. You just can't hear it.
Classmate: Ugh... I don't know. Sometimes it just leaves me confused.
Deungbaek: ?
Classmate: Serving God doesn't have to mean becoming a priest. Sometimes I feel like I'm on the right track. And other times I wonder if I'm on it at all. You never think like that?
Deungbaek: Not yet. And I shouldn't. Though sometimes... a strange feeling does come over me.
Classmate: What kind of feeling?
Deungbaek: God sometimes sends us trials to test whether we're walking the right path. And I've never once been tested. (Said with easy composure, but let it land with an unsettling undertone.)
Classmate: Lucky you. Hey, that's lucky. The best test is the one you never have to take.
Late at night, under a torrential downpour. Not a soul in sight.
In the middle of it, Deungbaek staggers along alone.
Blood mixes with the rain and streams down his forehead. One hand pressed to the wound, he lurches forward in agony.
With every fragment of the past that surfaces, his steps grow heavier.
A woman lying cold and lifeless in his arms. His own voice wailing as he clutches her—
Yangheung (V.O.): You have to live.
A voice whispering in his ear—
Deungbaek finally drops to his knees on the pavement, gasping for breath.
Deungbaek (past life): Damn it — God? God exists? If God existed, He never would have left you like this! If such a being existed, He never would have let you go like this! There's nothing! There is no God! (Wailing) There's nothing!
Hearing his own voice, Deungbaek shakes his head violently — and then a pale hand is extended before his eyes.
He looks up. Through a rain-and-blood-blurred vision, a man stands holding a black umbrella.
It is Im Seo.
Im Seo:(Smiling) Senbei. Why are you crying out here?
Rembrary spent the entire script reading in a daze.
He had known his character had no lines — but none was truly none at all.
Even though his name kept appearing in the script.
What flustered him more was that, lineless though he was, the stage directions still called for him to stare at Maeng Woo-shin in certain scenes, or hand him objects. When Rembrary simply stood there blankly at such a moment, Screenwriter Shim Gyeong cut the reading short to instruct him.
"No, Yeon-woo — move your hand a little at that part."
"No, Yeon-woo — at least look at Maeng Woo-shin there."
"No, Yeon-woo — you don't need to do the whole gesture that big."
Only after being corrected several times did Rembrary grasp what Screenwriter Shim Gyeong actually wanted.
Maeng Woo-shin, by contrast, delivered from beginning to end. Though he and Rembrary had parted on less than friendly terms, he gave no hint of it whatsoever during the reading.
No — he didn't seem like Maeng Woo-shin at all. He was Won Deung-baeck himself. Even his past-life self and his present-day self felt like two different people.
Lim Yu-han, the female lead, had carried a languid air during the introductions, but the moment the reading began she transformed convincingly into a bright, optimistic atheist.
Little by little, the room's attention slid away from Rembrary and settled on the two leads.
And then, at last, came Rembrary's very first line — the scene where he approaches the wailing Maeng Woo-shin and speaks to him with a smile.
"Sunbae. Why are you crying out here?"
Just as he'd rehearsed, Rembrary delivered it with a benevolent smile.
It came off quite natural. At least, Rembrary thought so.
Besides, Jong-woo, the acting coach, and even CEO Im had all judged his practice runs of this line to be "natural."
Rembrary had fully expected to sail right past this part.
But before Maeng Woo-shin could deliver his reply, Screenwriter Shim Gyeong cut him off flatly.
"No. That's not it."
Startled, Rembrary looked at her. Screenwriter Shim Gyeong made no effort to hide her displeasure, her brow furrowed with clear dissatisfaction.
In what way? As Rembrary peered at her in bewilderment, she explained.
"It's too natural."
"...I beg your pardon?"
Understanding receded even further, and the question escaped him before he could stop it.
The line being "natural" was the very assessment everyone had already given it. And everyone had treated that assessment as a compliment.
Yet Screenwriter Shim Gyeong wore the expression of someone served a dish she hadn't ordered.
When Rembrary continued to stare blankly, she waved a hand vaguely through the air, groping for words.
"How do I put this... Yeon-woo, could you say it a little stiffer? More mechanical — awkward, but, you know, not awkward?"
Question marks popped up in Rembrary's mind one after another.
Awkward, but not awkward? What nonsense is this?
But the director sided with her.
"Yeon-woo, the character of Im Seo has to make the audience wonder, 'Why does he talk and act so strangely?' Im Seo is himself a character performing ordinary human speech and behavior."
?
The director and Screenwriter Shim Gyeong wore identical expressions of frustration.
Screenwriter Shim Gyeong had cast Rembrary because his image was ideal flower-folding-screen material, but there had been another reason too — the same reason the director had signed off on his casting without a moment's hesitation.
The inability to act naturally.
"Acting like you can't act" is a performance of extremely high difficulty. The director had concluded that among actors of the right age for the role of Im Seo, none possessed both the looks he wanted and that particular skill.
So instead, he had cast an idol who had the visuals but genuinely could not act.
Except Rembrary's acting turned out to be far more natural than anyone had anticipated. As the acting coach had told CEO Im, Rembrary's range might be narrow, but when it came to simply speaking "naturally," he was rock solid.
The director dragged a hand down his chin, at a loss.
Rembrary delivering his lines this naturally meant... he was now going to have to ask that talentless idol to perform "the act of not being able to act."
Could he really expect that idol — famous solely for his attitude — to pull off a performance that only seasoned veterans with exceptional acting chops could manage?