Everyday Acting: Visualizing Director Lee Tae-ryun's Vision
Visualizing Director Lee Tae-ryun's Image
A throbbing sensation pulsed through my skull as my vision blurred.
It was coming. It was coming! It was coming!!!
A scene far too familiar unfolded before my eyes.
A greasy exhaust fan, a tacky menu board stuck to the wall, a sticky floor. The piercing smell of grilling meat and the clamor of loud conversations.
Ah, this cool yet heavy sensation.
It was so realistic I wanted to scream. Even though I knew it wasn’t real, the sense of reality was impossible to resist.
If I had to nitpick, it’s a little different from actual reality.
To be precise, it was the sensation of existing inside a fully post-corrected frame—lighting, special effects, everything included.
Right in front of me, a grill plate and metal tongs lay scattered in disarray. So this was how detailed Director Lee Tae-ryun’s vision was. Just how thoroughly had he done his research? It struck my PTSD with surgical precision.
Before I could even finish the thought that I needed to match it with my own performance—
Ding-ling—
The store door opened with a chime, and a familiar voice rang out.
“Two people here!”
There were no faces. It had to be a scene featuring only the minor actor playing the owner and me. In other words, a view no one else would see.
No.
This was the landscape Director Lee Tae-ryun would be watching. My body reacted before my mind even caught up.
“Yes, customers! Please sit right this way!”
I instinctively bowed and guided them to their seats.
Huh.
Until now, I had believed I was trying to break through the wall of talent with pure technique. But—
Who said it again? Method is when the body remembers the movement even if you aren’t consciously aware of it.
This moment had to be exactly what that meant.
I glanced around. Doyun’s role didn’t call for wiping the grill; it was just serving.
But in a meat restaurant this busy—if this is the direction Director Lee Tae-ryun is seeing—
There was no way a lone part-timer would only be serving. I started vigorously scrubbing the grill. Actually, I really was wiping it. The familiar sting in my hands felt all too real.
“Side dishes coming right up!”
I moved busily, and only after taking in the whole scene did I truly feel it.
Sang-cheol. This character might not be so different from me after all. In fact, I even wondered if Sang-cheol felt closer to me than the protagonist Min-woo ever could.
Taking orders, shouting toward the kitchen, refilling empty side-dish bowls, wiping tables—I repeated the sequence of motions.
The sensations my body had absorbed over more than a decade moved me on their own, without any conscious effort to act.
Any moment now.
It was time for the minor actor playing the owner to appear.
Right then, the minor actor uncle walked over with an awkward stride.
“H-hey, Sang-cheol! What the hell are you doing? Customers are piling up!”
Awkward acting. His voice was loud, but it carried zero emotion. That wasn’t how it should be done. There was none of the owner’s irritation or urgency when facing customers.
If this were a real part-time job, I would’ve been grateful.
It was exactly as I had expected.
“Ten-minute break, then we’ll go again!”
At the staff member’s shout, the rehearsal paused. As expected, Director Lee Tae-ryun’s sharp voice cut through the air.
“You there, playing the owner. What was that? If you’re going to phone it in just because it’s a minor role, get out!”
The minor actor uncle bowed his head, completely flustered.
Director Lee Tae-ryun being rude is one thing, but after seeing that performance…
It was exactly the kind of thing his personality would produce.
What now?
I didn’t want the flow broken in a scene where I could deliver my best work, but honestly, watching him struggle in the early stages of minor roles felt like seeing my old self. It didn’t sit well with me.
If I could help, I should. It would benefit me too if the minor actor delivered a solid performance.
Luckily, I had plenty of experience working under a nightmare boss.
“Excuse me, unc… I mean, Actor-nim.”
“Yes? Ah, yes!”
I approached the minor actor uncle, who looked somewhat deflated after the harsh feedback, and smiled.
“If it’s all right with you, something occurred to me. Would you like to hear it? I think it might help.”
“Yes? What do you mean…?”
I recalled the scene I had seen through Director’s Vision.
“Okay, picture this. It’s peak time at the meat restaurant. The place is overflowing with people, smoke fills the air, and the owner is already losing his mind. Then customers keep pouring in through the door.”
The minor actor looked confused but listened intently.
“Yes…”
“The owner is counting money at the register, hears the door, and snaps his head up. At that exact moment, there’s only one thought in his head: If I lose these customers, today’s sales are cut in half! But that part-timer looks like he’s just standing there spacing out?”
“Ah, yes!”
The uncle nodded as if something had clicked.
“The key is making it feel like the part-timer in front of him isn’t working hard. Customers seem ready to leave, he’s anxious, he’s so busy he could die, yet the part-timer looks completely free. Whether that’s true or not doesn’t matter.”
Yeah. No matter how dead I was from overwork, I always looked like I had free time in the boss’s eyes.
“So just focus on that feeling. That’s what the director wants to see. And one more thing—this just came to me.”
“Ah, what is it, Actor-nim?”
“Let’s fix how you end your sentences! Try adding some weight. It’ll feel a lot more real. Haha…”
For a second he looked startled by my dazed expression, but the minor actor’s eyes soon sparkled.
“Ah, understood! I’ll give it a try. Thank you so much! I am Bang Jong-su! I will never forget this favor!”
“Haha… favor? We don’t even know how it’ll turn out yet.”
He was so sincerely grateful that it made me feel embarrassed. Still, I wished someone had given me advice like this back in my own minor-role days.
Though these days I have the Actor Gallery users.
As that thought crossed my mind, a name suddenly flashed through my head.
Wait… Jong-su?
Only then did I truly look at the minor actor’s face.
“Actor-nim, by any chance is your family name…?”
“Ah, look at me. I didn’t introduce myself earlier. I’m Bang Jong-su. Bang Jong-su.”
A sharp pang struck my chest. The memory was faint but impossible to forget. The actor I had met on a minor-role set twenty years ago.
Actor Bang Jong-su.
He had been unknown for a long time, but his talent had exploded at a relatively late age and he had carved out a solid supporting-actor career.
He was the person who had approached me when I was crying in a corner after being brutally scolded on set, told me he had gone through the same thing, and offered warm comfort along with a few tips.
Excluding one other person, he was the most grateful figure in my acting life.
He was the one who taught me there is no such thing as a small actor. Aside from that benefactor, no one had ever treated me with such warmth.
Back then senior actors rarely bothered teaching minor roles, so I couldn’t even begin to describe how much that short piece of advice had meant to me.
To think I would end up helping him from the past like this. Fate really was strange.
I smiled and bowed politely to the minor actor.
“…It’s because you lived kindly back then, Actor-nim. I’m the one who should be thanking you.”
“Huh? What do you…”
The minor actor uncle looked utterly bewildered.
Scene 5 – Sang-cheol’s Meat Restaurant Rehearsal
Kim Doyun’s acting had no problems. The issue was the minor actor playing the meat-restaurant owner who appeared only briefly.
Director Lee Tae-ryun hadn’t wanted to waste time on such a small scene, but his perfectionism refused to let it slide.
Behind the camera, beside Director Lee Tae-ryun, Writer Yun Song-i chattered away.
“Actor Kim Doyun is completely different from before, isn’t he? It feels like genuine slice-of-life acting.”
Director Lee Tae-ryun kept his arms folded and answered indifferently.
“Are you trying to become a total fan too? You look exactly like you did back when you were a hollow-eyed writer’s assistant.”
“What?! But you actually agree with me? What’s gotten into you?”
At that moment, the youngest member of the filming crew—who had received a lunchbox earlier—suddenly chimed in. The name tag around his neck read Baek Hyeon-jin.
“Of course. That’s how outstanding our Actor Kim Doyun is.”
Director Lee Tae-ryun frowned and glared at Baek Hyeon-jin.
“And who is this now?”
Next to him, Cinematographer Yun Seong-woo let out a dry laugh.
“Beats me. He got one lunchbox from the rookie actor earlier and now he’s like this.”
Baek Hyeon-jin stood his ground without flinching.
“It’s not wrong, though. I’ve worked part-time jobs myself, so I know—that performance is excellent.”
Director Lee Tae-ryun clicked his tongue inwardly.
He was stiff during the interview too.
The youngest member of the filming crew, who always seemed to be squinting—whether because his eyes were small or not. He had come for a directing department interview saying he wanted to become a director, but Lee Tae-ryun had sent him to start as the filming team’s gofer instead.
Well, he does have talent, so I’m keeping an eye on him for now.
Writer Yun Song-i nodded at Baek Hyeon-jin’s words.
“It is true that it’s excellent. But…”
The problem was the minor actor playing the owner.
Because the role was so short, it hadn’t gone through proper casting; he was a supporting performer hastily brought in through the floor director.
“Director, do we really need to put this much effort into this scene? Can’t we just move on?”
Cinematographer Yun Seong-woo joined Baek Hyeon-jin’s question.
“He’s a perfectionist. We have to understand. Still, I didn’t think you’d pay this much attention to a single scene like this.”
His tone carried a hint of puzzlement.
Even Lee Tae-ryun wouldn’t normally invest this much into a supporting character’s scene.
But the acting coming from the actor named Kim Doyun left him no choice but to pay attention.
I can feel it. I still can’t figure out what it is.
That unpleasant feeling from the audition—like someone was peering into his mind. The unknown techniques whose origin he couldn’t trace.
He felt that same chilling, unidentified sensation again this time.
And leaving that aside—
Slice-of-life acting. He was performing the role of a meat-restaurant part-timer with a level of authenticity that would be impossible without having actually done the job.
This is in a completely different realm from regular acting.
He had wanted to capture the flavor of Kim Doyun’s acting in the restaurant scene as much as possible. Yet that minor actor was killing the taste.
Just then, Kim Chan-uk’s voice drifted over from where he was resting in the audience seats.
“He’s not acting—he’s just doing a part-time job.”
It was a mocking, belittling tone. His voice had grown louder without him realizing it.
Director Lee Tae-ryun’s brows narrowed instantly. The fact that someone with Kim Chan-uk’s middling level of talent would deny his own senses irritated him.
“Actor Kim Chan-uk, don’t you have anything to do?”
At Director Lee Tae-ryun’s cutting tone, Kim Chan-uk flinched and looked over.
“Ah, no, Director, that’s not—”
“It looks like you should be focusing on your own acting instead.”
“…Understood.”
Having never seen this side of Director Lee Tae-ryun before, Kim Chan-uk quickly retreated.
“Director, don’t be too harsh. Actor Kim Chan-uk doesn’t look like he’s in a good state lately.”
“Forget it. Writer Yun, more importantly, is that owner role even necessary in this scene? Can’t we cut it?”
Writer Yun Song-i answered with clear distaste.
“Wow, I never thought I’d hear you say something like that. You always insisted the script was strictly the writer’s domain.”
Director Lee Tae-ryun knew that when directors touched the script, the results were rarely good. However—
“I understand where you’re coming from. But you know why, right? This scene shows why Sang-cheol is so desperate for money and why he has no choice but to give realistic advice even while understanding Min-woo’s artistic anguish. We can’t remove it. Absolutely not.”
“Hmm…”
Director Lee Tae-ryun pondered for a moment, then noticed Kim Doyun and the minor actor talking together on one side of the stage.
Is that feedback just now?
It was absurd. A complete rookie actor giving feedback?
“Director, why don’t we try one more take? It looks like they exchanged some feedback.”
At Writer Yun Song-i’s suggestion, Director Lee Tae-ryun let out a light sigh.
“All right.”
At Director Lee Tae-ryun’s gesture, a staff member’s voice rang out.
“Okay, we’re going again! Scene 5! Get ready!”
The scene began again from the owner scolding Sang-cheol.
It’s obvious what’ll happen. We can’t rewrite the script at this point… Should we replace the minor actor?
While Director Lee Tae-ryun was contemplating how to minimize the minor actor’s presence—
“Oh, this time it’s different from before!”
At Writer Yun Song-i’s words, he lifted his chin slightly.
“Hey, you bastard! How many times does that customer have to ask for more side dishes?! Are you the only one with nothing to do?”
An ad-lib from the minor actor that no one had expected.
“Ha. Let’s do this properly, shall we!”
The acting had clearly become noticeably more natural.
What is this?
It was so vivid it felt like they were really inside a meat restaurant. The rehearsal flowed like water and was over before they knew it.
Writer Yun Song-i asked with a smile.
“Oh, does this mean it passes?”
It still didn’t completely satisfy him. But the performance itself had barely crossed the passing line.
“But how did that actor suddenly get so much better? Can someone improve that quickly?”
“Of course not.”
Director Lee Tae-ryun answered Writer Yun Song-i’s question.
“The problem with that minor actor’s performance wasn’t the acting itself. His rough appearance didn’t match the timid way he was delivering the lines. I don’t know what change of heart he had, but if you take that part out, his acting was decent from the start.”
“Is that so?”
When the rehearsal ended, the minor actor with the potbelly kept apologizing to the staff for lengthening the rehearsal.
Then he ran over to Kim Doyun, bowed deeply, and expressed his gratitude.
Director Lee Tae-ryun watched with a complicated expression—half unwilling to admit it, half intrigued—and muttered.
“Heh. Looks like Actor-nim gained another fan.”