Parabola's First Shoot
A sharp tension hung over the set.
Even for veteran actors, the atmosphere on a first day of filming never changed. Stepping into a new project always felt unfamiliar and fresh. Once the cameras rolled you immersed yourself in the role and lived another person's life, so that sense of strangeness while adapting to the character was inevitable no matter how much experience you carried.
Yeon-woo looked around the set. Not only the actors standing in front of the cameras but the staff as well were wound tight as a drawn bowstring; he could feel the tension on his skin.
They had rented out an entire outdoor basketball court on one side of Hangang Park. It was a stretch where the green space for picnic mats narrowed, so it was less popular than other parts of the park and relatively free of foot traffic. A fence stood between the walking path and the court, so thankfully there didn't seem to be much risk of accidents from crowds. Still, with outdoor shoots it was best to wrap as quickly as possible. Natural light shifted with the time of day, and the longer they filmed, the more onlookers would gather nearby—sometimes creating dangerous situations later on.
A lot of familiar faces, though.
Since this was Director Kim Han-su's project, most of the staff were the same ones who had worked with him on Yeon-woo's first drama, Summer's Closet. He even spotted Lighting Director Im Seong-su, who had worked with them on the Theater Group Saebyeol play.
"We'll be rolling soon, so everyone get ready."
At Director Kim Han-su's words, the actors in front of the cameras lightly loosened up. This was the drama's first group shoot, and at the same time a fairly important scene—the one that would firmly establish each character's personality. Watching his co-stars warm up, Yeon-woo gave a small nod.
I just need to do my part well.
The most recent thing he'd filmed was the movie Moon. Before that, the play Mirror. And before that, White Blood. Come to think of it, none of those three projects had involved working with veteran actors. In the movie Moon, his co-star Hong A-yun was a newcomer, so more often than not Yeon-woo had had to match her rhythm and take the lead without even realizing it. And the play Mirror, performed with his amateur friends, had actually been twice as exhausting as Moon. Finally, White Blood had featured Han Byeol, a newcomer selected through open auditions, along with Jeong Su-yeon and Dong-ha, who at the time had equally little acting experience to speak of.
This drama, Parabola, was different. Jeong Su-yeon and Dong-ha, whose skills had matured considerably since then. And veterans who needed no introduction: Jeong Cheol-min, Son Jin-uk, Jin Yu-han. There wasn't a single novice among the co-stars.
In this project I don't need to adjust to anyone else's rhythm or take the lead, so I can just show my acting pure and unfiltered.
He had full faith that the actors working with him would catch whatever he threw.
Yeon-woo immersed himself in the situation. As discussed in the meetings, they had decided to use the actors' real names for the roles. Yeon-woo focused on the story of a twenty-one-year-old young man named 'Ryu Yeon-woo' living inside the world of Parabola.
'Ryu Yeon-woo' had grown up under elite parents and lived his entire life according to a rigidly scheduled hamster wheel. After entering high school the pressure had intensified, and the rot that had been festering inside him finally burst, leaving him with a mental disorder.
When people are under extreme tension, their thoughts often accelerate to the extreme and the world seems to move comparatively slowly. The problem was that for 'Ryu Yeon-woo,' that had become everyday life. He would register every single wrinkle on the lips of whoever was speaking in front of him, and calculate every possible next action the other person might take—like reading an opponent's moves in a game of baduk. Having that state persist constantly eventually led to brain overload, making it impossible to maintain a normal daily life. In the end he dropped out of school and lived a life fighting his illness, until one day he happened to see people playing street basketball under a bridge.
That covers episode one. What we're filming today is the part where he realizes that, strangely, his illness—which he thinks of as a curse—doesn't flare up when he's playing basketball.
To portray the 'Ryu Yeon-woo' of the drama well, after finishing the character design he had spent months continuously researching and creating. He had reviewed the behaviors of the countless war-trauma patients he had seen in his previous life and worked hard to apply them.
"Okay. Everyone stand by. We'll shoot it straight through first, then pick up individual lines afterward. First line is Kim Dong-ha. Ready, cue."
Director Kim Han-su's signal came through. Because the role name was the real name, it was Kim Dong-ha rather than the stage name Dong-ha who kicked off the first take of this shoot.
"Great work, hyungs! Jin-uk hyung, is the spot where you collided with the other team earlier okay?"
Catching Dong-ha's cheerfully delivered line, Son Jin-uk shrugged his shoulders.
"Doesn't bother me at all? Probably felt like running into a boulder. Heh."
Then, with a blank expression, Jin Yu-han jabbed Son Jin-uk hard in the shoulder.
"Gah!"
"But why's this spot getting more and more purple? You said you're a rock, hyung—so is it moss growing on you?"
When Son Jin-uk's bruised arm was suddenly poked, he flinched and curled his large frame in on itself.
"You little— Why'd you suddenly poke me?"
"Be honest. It hurts, right?"
"What! I'm not hurt, I was just surprised. No way I'd get injured colliding with a skinny guy like that."
"That's because you play basketball like a brute. That's why you should learn from me—I'm a former player."
Watching the two bicker with a look of exasperation, Jeong Su-yeon turned her head toward her father.
"Dad. We need to go soon. We have to get ready for the evening rush."
"Oh, right. Kids, I'm heading in first, okay?"
That was when Yeon-woo, who had erased his presence among the actors and been quietly shrinking into himself, opened his mouth for the first time.
"Um, e-excuse me. Me. I-I have something to say...!"
His tightly hunched shoulders, wandering eyes, and the compulsive clenching and unclenching of his hands made anyone watching feel uneasy on pure instinct. The gazes of the actors who had been delivering their lines all snapped to Yeon-woo at once. Of course the stage directions said they all stop talking and look at Yeon-woo, but that wasn't the only reason.
What kind of speech pattern is that...
No one could believe the person in front of them was Yeon-woo. The trembling voice, the awkward posture, the uneasy eye contact—all those non-verbal elements combined to form a single character. And it wasn't the usual Ryu Yeon-woo who felt confident and capable of handling anything thrown at him. It was clearly the same face, yet the ceaselessly trembling pupils and the faintly quivering lips made even the people watching tense up in sympathy.
Using an actor's real name for the role had its pros and cons. Viewers were already familiar with the actors' names, so even if the drama had many complex characters, it could be grasped intuitively. But put another way, it made it hard to separate the character from the actor's actual background. The other roles didn't clash much with the actors' real images, so that was fine—but Yeon-woo was different. He had the image of a "cheat character" who excelled at everything, and now, thanks to his Netflix success, he even had a certain degree of global recognition. In contrast, the 'Ryu Yeon-woo' of the drama was a fragile person who would break into a cold sweat just buying a triangle kimbap alone at a convenience store.
Jin Yu-han stared at Yeon-woo for a moment, then gave a tiny nod so slight it wouldn't be caught on camera.
I was wondering how he'd bridge the gap between reality and the role—turns out he's just smashing it with pure acting skill.
The man in front of him was clearly Yeon-woo, yet not Yeon-woo, and at the same time he was 'Ryu Yeon-woo'—the 'Ryu Yeon-woo' of the drama that they had only read in the script and imagined. Jeong Cheol-min, who had the next line, barely managed to hit the timing and jump in.
"Ah, yes. We grabbed you while you were passing by and suddenly asked you to fill out our numbers, and you kindly joined us—thank you. But what was it you wanted to say...?"
"...I..."
Ryu Yeon-woo started to say something, looked around, and shrank back again. His eyes, darting rapidly left and right, seemed somehow to be watching people's lips. Seeing him muster courage again only to shrink back once more, Kim Dong-ha approached and spoke while lightly clapping Yeon-woo on the back in a friendly way.
No—he tried to.
As if he had eyes in the back of his head, Yeon-woo had already turned and caught Kim Dong-ha's hand flying toward his back with both of his own, politely holding it as he bowed his head.
"Ah, s-sorry..."
"Hyung, from what I saw earlier, you might not be great at other things but your pass cutting is incredible? Since we played basketball together today, we're connected now—let's be friends going forward, yeah? Do you live around here?"
"F-friends... around here..."
Yeon-woo looked around. In truth, the Ryu Yeon-woo of the drama didn't even know the rules of basketball well. It was just that while watching basketball, even though his thoughts accelerated as usual, somehow it didn't feel exhausting, and before he knew it he'd been swept up in the atmosphere and ended up running around on the court with them. And that had felt genuinely fun for the first time in a long while. No—maybe the feeling of fun itself was a first. He had done what he had to do, and only what he was told to do. He never did what he was told not to, and never got to do what he wanted. He had simply dangled from strings packaged as parental downward love, like a puppet, endlessly turning the predetermined hamster wheel. As a result, it seemed he had never once taken the initiative to do something he wanted without his parents' interference.
Ryu Yeon-woo bit his lip and mustered his courage.
"I-I also want to play basketball from now on, I-I would like? P-please teach..."
The accent and grammar were a complete mess. The sounds should have linked together in a chain, but some parts seemed to cut off abruptly while others were too fast or too slow. Watching Yeon-woo like that, Son Jin-uk clicked his tongue in amazement. He probably couldn't have copied it even if he'd tried.
Because the Ryu Yeon-woo of the drama feels time flowing slower than other people, he can't lock onto clear speech accents? Just how detailed did he make this character design?
Pretending to be bad at something you're good at is twice as hard as the reverse. Even someone who can't speak English can practice a few phrases in advance and fake fluency. But when a Korean tries to mimic a foreigner's awkward pronunciation, the fluent mother-tongue sounds that have stuck to their mouth for a lifetime inevitably slip out somewhere. Yet right now, every single word from Ryu Yeon-woo was consistently awkward and consistently anxious from start to finish. At the same time there was the compulsive clenching and unclenching of his hands, and the pupils that shook without rest as if an earthquake had hit them.
Watching Yeon-woo like that, Jeong Cheol-min picked up the next line.
"Wow, what should we do about this. Then maybe I could teach you a little..."
"Dad. What are you talking about. Even if we leave now we'll be late."
"Ahem, right? Then Dong-ha could..."
When Jeong Cheol-min tried to pass it to Dong-ha, he shook his head.
"I have a date."
Son Jin-uk grinned.
"Oh, the red sports car noona who came to pick you up last time?"
"No. That noona is Wednesdays. Today's Saturday."
"...Crazy bastard."
Shaking his head side to side, Son Jin-uk looked back and forth between Yeon-woo and Jin Yu-han.
"Then I guess there's no choice."
There was a magic word that moved Jin Yu-han.
"Former player Yu-han should teach him. For a basketball beginner, an expert needs to systematically teach them, right?"
"No, why should I go to the trouble."
"Because you're a former player."
"...I am a former player, yeah."
With a displeased expression, Jin Yu-han stared blankly at the Ryu Yeon-woo who seemed somehow not entirely normal.
"Ha, it really does seem like a hassle, but I'll specially teach you a little. I'm a former player, after all."
He was a classic tsundere who would do anything if you gently prodded his pride as a former player.
"Th-thank... But why the informal speech...?"
As Yeon-woo tilted his head, looking at the ground and muttering to himself, Director Kim Han-su's signal came through.
"Okay, cut!"