There Are No Small Actors
There may be small roles, but there are no small actors. Those were the words of a legendary actor who laid the foundation for method acting.
I believed them too. Even after twenty years of scraping by as a nameless extra, even while scrubbing greasy grills until my hands were raw.
I am an actor.
“This damn grease won’t come off.”
My fingertips stung as I scrubbed the oil-caked grill with a steel scouring pad.
“Table three still waiting on their sides?!”
The boss’s voice cracked like a whip against the back of my head. I didn’t need to turn around to picture his expression. I plastered on the twenty-year-veteran-actor smile and carried the side dishes over alone.
“Coming right up!”
The boss added one last shot.
“Do it right.”
“Yes, sir!”
Scrubbing grills, serving, grilling meat, washing dishes—I handled everything by myself. Mistakes were inevitable. If I were any good at this, I’d already be on television. Maybe then my face would at least be a little famous.
“Sorry for the wait!”
By the time I reached the table, the customers’ faces were already twisted with irritation.
“Took you long enough! You’ve got no basics at all, tsk.”
“Hey, why are you acting like a Karen all of a sudden, hyung-nim?”
“Kids these days don’t even know what they’re supposed to do. At times like this you’re supposed to throw in a free drink or two.”
“It’s fine, just go.”
“Haha, yes……”
The moment I set the dishes down and turned to leave, one of the men frowned as if something had clicked.
“Hold on. I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere……”
“Hyung-nim, this is your first time here. What are you talking about? Just eat……”
The man chewing meat snapped his fingers.
“No, I saw him. Ah! That morning drama! He was in it!”
I’d never landed a lead role, but twenty years of eating actor’s rice had at least earned me plenty of minor parts.
“That’s right. I’m also active as an actor.”
People rarely recognized me. I answered without thinking, excitement slipping through.
“What? You’re actually an actor?”
“See? I told you! I knew I recognized him!”
Even if they were difficult customers, the fact that they’d seen my acting made me strangely happy.
“Yes, I’ve appeared in quite a lot, actually.”
Maybe they’d even ask for an autograph. I should’ve kept a pen ready.
At my smile, the man suddenly barked.
“Tsk. An actor your age still doing table service? If you had any talent you’d have made it already.”
“Hyung-nim, we’re eating. Why are you like this?”
“My daughter saw something on TV and now she’s dead set on becoming an actress. That kind of thing is only for talented people, right? Don’t you agree?”
“Haha…… Right.”
After countless bit parts and part-time jobs, I’d seen every kind of difficult customer and every shade of human nature. This much didn’t even make me flinch.
Still—
Talent, huh.
The word pierced straight through me. I’d heard it countless times at acting academies as a kid, on every minor-role set I managed to land.
[He seems like a sincere person and his acting itself isn’t bad, but I just don’t feel the soul…… It’s a shame.]
[Your acting feels slightly off. The direction is different, I suppose. That innate quality just isn’t there.]
[You’re clearly a step behind the ones who studied acting properly.]
The wording changed, but the essence never did. That sparkling talent—I simply didn’t have it.
[Don’t waste my time with acting like that.]
[Honestly, you have no talent.]
Those were the words the director I respected most had sighed out at my very first audition. Twenty years later, they still circled inside my head.
Late at night, after closing. While wringing out a wet rag, the sound from the hall TV reached my ears.
—The film has already drawn five million viewers and is setting new box-office records?
—That’s right. Tonight on Cinema Interview, we’ve managed to gather the stars of that five-million myth.
It was the long-running Friday program, Cinema Interview.
“Lee Se-rin and Kim Chan-uk, was it?”
They all shone so brightly. Worlds apart from me in my oil-stained work clothes.
“Come to think of it, both of them worked with Director Lee Tae-ryun.”
The words slipped out before I realized it.
“Must be nice.”
My voice came out hoarse. What was I even doing?
They were stars in the sky with no connection to me except having stood in the same audition hall twenty years ago.
“They really are something.”
They dominated dramas and films alike, swept awards ceremonies, and smiled radiantly in front of crowds.
They were the ones I had wanted to surpass, even for a single moment.
What a ridiculous thought.
Just as the gloom threatened to settle, I lightly slapped my cheeks and gripped the rag tighter.
“Get it together. There may be small roles, but there are no small actors, Kim Doyun!”
Even if I looked pathetic now, someday I would find a role where I could shine!
At that moment, the interviewer on TV turned to Lee Se-rin.
[You received Korea’s first Best Actress award at the Black Frame Awards! Thanks to your incredibly immersive performance, I cried so much in the theater!]
[Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed my acting.]
[Countless aspiring actors look up to you as their role model. If you have any acting secrets or advice to share……?]
A routine, light question. Still, I brightened and leaned in, thinking it might help somehow.
[A question about my acting. It might be a rather obvious answer.]
I should write this down.
The moment I pulled the worn notebook from my back pocket—
A man snatched the microphone from Lee Se-rin and answered.
[Talent.]
Something heavy slammed down inside my chest.
“……”
The interviewer, flustered by Director Lee Tae-ryun’s interruption, quickly tried to recover.
[Wow! As expected of Director Lee Tae-ryun. A bold statement worthy of being called a genius director. Still, for the sake of the growing actors out there, could you offer one piece of advice……?]
Director Lee Tae-ryun cut him off firmly.
[There is none. That sparkling talent. Without it, an actor—especially a star—is finished. The talent to read people’s hearts and enchant them by performing those emotions exactly as they are. Technique and practice come after that.]
I stopped scrubbing the grill, hands frozen. I stared at the rag.
“It’s all stained.”
Just like the grease I’d just wiped away, my twenty years suddenly felt worthless.
[Still, if you work hard……]
[The reason I’m called a genius director isn’t because of extraordinary insight into a script’s essence or emotional lines, or mise-en-scène that no one can imitate.]
Director Lee Tae-ryun pointed to his own eyes.
[These eyes. These eyes that recognize genius—that’s all there is. Mise-en-scène and direction naturally follow once a talented actor simply stands in their place. That’s not something you can fill with practice or effort.]
[Haha…… This straightforward side of him must be one of Director Lee Tae-ryun’s secrets to popularity……]
The interviewer’s voice sounded desperate to wrap things up, but I could no longer hear it.
My vision blurred. My throat tightened.
“Hey, hey! What are you doing? We’re not even closed yet!”
The boss’s voice came from behind, but this wasn’t the time.
“Ugh!”
Something hot surged up from my chest. Before I knew it, I was running so hard the restaurant disappeared behind me.
I ran as if my mind had gone blank. I heard the sound of rain but couldn’t feel it on my body. My skin grew cold, yet I had no time to care.
Beep—
When I came to my senses, all I could see was a dirty one-room apartment barely three pyeong in size.
“Ha.”
Only then did my vision clear.
The room was cluttered with countless scripts, acting manuals, and practice notes.
This was my space. The only place I could still be an actor.
If I was here……
“Haha……”
I picked up one of the scripts piled on the desk and opened it. The corners were frayed and scorched with age.
I remembered.
The margins were crammed with notes.
[Make the emotional flow more natural.]
[Think about the expression before the line.]
[Understand not just the script, but the meaning and intention behind the dialogue.]
[Take a deep breath before this line. Draw up the emotion first.]
[Emphasize this word. Change the emotional tone.]
[Even as an extra, act like the lead.]
[Talent is just another name for effort!]
How many times had I read them? How many times had I written them?
Traces of me struggling to take even one more step forward. This couldn’t have been meaningless.
“Then what the hell is this……?”
A massive mirror, completely out of place in the cramped room, reflected me.
The face that had once been called decent in my youth. Even with care, wrinkles crowded the corners of my eyes. My skin, constantly exposed to heat and oil at the restaurant until dawn, had done its best.
“How did it come to this?”
I’d never landed a single lead role and was still scrubbing greasy grills. My heart crumbled.
“Why?”
I buried my chin on the desk and whispered.
“Why am I the only one who can’t……?”
Tears came. I’d heard “no talent” more times than I could count.
Yet I never gave up. I wanted to be an actor.
I wanted to show people my acting. Even without talent, I believed my effort was talent.
“Why……”
I closed my eyes and spat out a curse at no one in particular.
“Why did you make me love acting this much! And then not give me even a speck of talent—what’s the reason for that!”
I didn’t know who I was talking to. I simply sat there and cried for a long time.
“Kgh…… I tried. Like I was going to die……”
Ever since I was old enough to choose, my eyes had followed the small box of faces in the corner rather than worn-out toys.
I had tried so hard to repay the love of the mother who raised me alone by succeeding as an actor.
[Our Doyun, even if your face just appears on TV someday, Mom will tell the whole neighborhood~]
[My son is an actor, an actor!]
But even in her final moments, I hadn’t stayed by her side because I was chasing “acting.”
[Doyun-ah, you said you had an audition, right? Don’t worry about Mom and go. Opportunities like this don’t come easily.]
That was our last conversation.
Ah. So that was why.
The reason I had noticed my lack of talent yet couldn’t give up in such an odd way. I wanted to hold onto the hand I’d let go of that day, even if only through acting.
In the end, that’s just self-satisfaction too.
Twenty years of dreaming of being an actor, yet achieving nothing while drifting between bit parts and part-time jobs.
That was my reality.
“I think I’ll stop now.”
At some point, an old rope I used as a prop for practice was in my hands.
Was it an impulsive choice? Or had it been buried deep in my heart for a long time?
I climbed onto the metal chair and looped the rope over the ceiling. The cold touch against my soles.
Creak. The chair swayed precariously.
“Just wait a little longer.”
—Thud
The moment my feet left the floor.
“Kghh!”
Something flickered before my eyes. Was this a life flashing before me?
“What…… the……”
Even a hollow laugh wouldn’t come out at the low-quality posts.
And within those unidentifiable words, actors I had never seen before shone brilliantly in the distance.
Their acting was so intense it didn’t feel like it belonged to this world. If it was acting like that, even Lee Se-rin…… No, no one could catch up to them.
If I could even glimpse the tips of their toes. No—what if I could exchange even a single word with them?
Even as my breath caught, my heart began to pound like mad.
Sparkle. That dazzling sparkle……
Those stars!
My eyes devoured the images floating in the air without rest.
They said I had no talent. I want to live. I want to live and make their monstrous acting my own!
While my reason said acting and life must end, my instincts screamed otherwise.
Yet soon, all strength left my body.
In the final moment, the phrase I had stuck to the ceiling came into view.
[There may be small roles, but there are no small actors.]
……Like hell there aren’t.
The thing I hated most was that I still loved acting.
I really, truly hated that about myself.