How Dull the World Must Feel
"Su-a's acting is really something, isn't it?"
Gwon Du-il kept his voice to a whisper. Fortunately, Su-a seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep; she didn't stir. Lee Ga-hee answered just as quietly.
"Yes. Enough to make me proud."
"Director Hong and the rest of the cast can't stop singing her praises. Director Hong even told Bae Su-chan to go ask Su-a for advice, if you can believe it. Never a blown take, always polite, never a word of complaint… The whole atmosphere on set changes the moment she shows up, you know?"
"I'm glad to hear you say that."
The hand that stroked Su-a's hair was careful, almost tender — but Lee Ga-hee's expression was harder to read. Gwon Du-il glanced at her in the rearview mirror and ventured a question.
"Are you worried she's pushing herself too hard? Today's shoot was a pretty demanding scene, I'll give you that."
"It did look that way. But Su-a manages her own condition well enough."
"Seems like something else is on your mind."
"Mm… I just find this whole situation a little strange. I originally wanted us to live quietly, without drawing any attention. Then suddenly the child is on television, shooting a movie… and I never imagined she'd be this good at acting…"
Well — this was no bit part in a series, no one-act play. She was a prominent supporting role in a Hong Il-beom film. She had landed her first part less than a year ago and was already shooting a movie; of course Lee Ga-hee would feel dazed.
But as far as Gwon Du-il could tell, it wasn't only the situation that had her unsettled.
When Su-a spoke fluent English that time… she had no idea, did she?
He had only caught fragments, but the relationship between Lee Su-a and Lee Ga-hee was not unlike that of Cheon-young and Ji-suk. Two people who had clung to each other through a crushing environment, who had barely escaped — they would have to believe they knew each other better than anyone.
And yet Lee Ga-hee had known nothing of Lee Su-a's gift for acting, nor of her effortless command of English.
"She's an exceptional child. That's all it is, I imagine. She must have been sharp as a tack even when she was little."
"To a maddening degree, actually. If she was going to become famous, I thought it would be for her studies, not this. The way that mind of hers works…"
"Aigoo, she'd have gone far even if she'd stuck to schoolwork. Watching her squeeze in homework and preview her lessons between shoots — it's enough to make you respect her."
Being a gifted actor did not mean you memorized lines easily. But Su-a only glanced at the script in snatches on set, and barely opened it at all back at the lodging.
Other people might not have noticed. Lee Ga-hee and Gwon Du-il did. Su-a's memory, and her gift for solving problems, were anything but ordinary.
"The other day, Su-a said something. You remember the making-of camera they had on us during the Dangsan Tree fire scene?"
"Yes. She was having so much fun that everyone found it strange."
"The making-of PD asked if it was really that enjoyable, and she said it was fun because it made her feel alive… and I thought, this child was always going to have to act, wasn't she?"
"Ah… I'm sorry, I'm not sure I follow…"
Didn't guardians usually object when their children got involved in dangerous work?
Lee Ga-hee smiled faintly at Gwon Du-il's confusion.
"Su-a's mind is truly extraordinary. Sometimes I wonder if there's anything she doesn't already know."
"I know what you mean. I've thought the same thing."
"Nobody taught her, and she speaks English at a native level. When someone's watching, she deliberately solves her homework slowly. She's already memorized the entire script, but she still scribbles notes in it and thumbs through the pages until they're worn, just in case someone might call her out… For a child like that, how dull must this world feel?"
These were not the behaviors of someone who was simply intelligent. Lee Su-a seemed to know exactly how to win people over, how to dismantle their wariness. No matter what situation arose, her center never wavered.
If everything in the world unfolded within the range of what you had already predicted, and even the unexpected could be solved in an instant — how tedious would living become? That was what worried Lee Ga-hee.
And, a little, what frightened her.
"So I was grateful she already knows what she finds interesting. Of course, if she keeps trying to do dangerous stunts I'll have to stop her, but still — a person should do things they enjoy and live a little happily, don't you think?"
"I understand what you mean. I was worried she might start chasing thrills and stimulation, but hearing you put it that way, I think she'll be all right."
Gwon Du-il laughed lightly and checked Lee Ga-hee's face in the rearview mirror. The way she looked down at Lee Su-a sat uneasily with him.
It might have been a leap, but Lee Ga-hee did not seem to think of her own daughter as an ordinary child.
It was a slightly different texture from the parents who believed, without a shred of doubt, in their own child's specialness. In the Lee Su-a that Lee Ga-hee described, there was an uncomfortable sense of distance.
She almost seems afraid of her… No. That's going too far.
Gwon Du-il considered asking more, then let it go. He was not yet in a position to go meddling in family matters.
Su-a slept soundly all the way to the production lodging.
Just like any other ordinary child.
"Nnngh…"
The day after playing through violent emotion, the body-ache always came. Still, I had been exercising consistently since the regression and eating three proper meals a day, so the fever didn't spike the way it had a few months ago.
I was sick enough, though, that Director Hong Il-beom suggested I go home.
"I could skip school tomorrow…"
"Rest today and rest tomorrow. You need to manage your condition — we've got important scenes next week."
"I do still have several scenes left to shoot."
The final scene, hinting that Cheon-young would appear in the sequel under a new name.
And Cheon-young's abuse scenes — the ones that, for some reason, had at some point stopped being mentioned as something we would actually film.
Hong Il-beom seemed to know exactly what I was getting at. He pressed his lips together for a moment, then asked my mother and Gwon Du-il, who were there with us, for a moment of privacy.
"Could I speak with Su-a alone for a moment?"
Amusingly, they both looked at me first, so I told them it was fine. Well. Was this the moment, then?
"CEO, wait a second."
I caught Gwon Du-il as he was about to leave and whispered something in his ear. He understood. He walked out radiating a distinctly ominous air.
That took care of the precaution.
I waited for Hong Il-beom to speak. Even once we were alone, he hemmed and hawed in a way that wasn't like him at all.
"Su-a, you didn't seem affected at all by the idea of filming Cheon-young's abuse scenes. Am I right?"
"Um…"
"I'm not trying to say that's a bad thing. I just… how is that possible? When you see someone else in pain, doesn't it hurt you in a similar way?"
His tone was astonishingly careful; he truly didn't seem to be trying to condemn me.
So I answered just as carefully, and honestly.
"If someone close to me is hurting, of course I'm sad. I was sad when Cheon-young was being abused, too. But I'm the actor playing Cheon-young, so I tried not to get swept up in the emotion."
"How?"
"I told Senior Bae Su-chan the same thing — Cheon-young is Cheon-young, and I am me. Once you know that, it isn't hard. And on the days it's really difficult, I just sleep with Mom."
I said it with a child's innocence, and Hong Il-beom snorted a small laugh. But he hesitated again, reluctant to say what came next.
I waited patiently.
"The reason I — the reason I want to include those scenes…"
"Yes. I'm listening."
"Because I thought people might understand, even just for a moment…"
He pried the thought loose in clumsy fragments — a thought he had stewed over for so long it had scorched itself to the bottom of him — and laid it out as best he could.
I kept my reactions to the occasional light murmur of agreement and simply listened.
"So what you're saying, Director, is that you can only truly understand suffering if you see its actual form?"
"Yes."
"I can see how someone might think that!"
Hong Il-beom gave a short laugh.
"You don't seem to agree with that, Su-a."
I nodded carefully.
"May I tell you what I think?"
"Please do."
"If you showed every kind of abuse Cheon-young suffered… I think the audience would just lose interest."
Hong Il-beom's eyes flew wide.
"But — even once they knew how hard it was, how much it hurt?"
Hong Il-beom let out a long sigh.
There were people like him, who could not take their eyes off someone else's pain — and there were people who turned away. You couldn't simply condemn the ones who looked away. More often than not, it wasn't indifference. It was self-preservation.
"You're a strong person, Director. You look into someone's suffering and try to understand their grief."
"…"
"But people came to watch an entertaining movie. If there's too much sadness, won't they all just run away? What happens if word gets out that it isn't a fun, funny movie — that it's just too sad? And if the movie doesn't do well, you're going to end up with a whole lot of people who are genuinely unhappy."
The sudden injection of hard practicality left Hong Il-beom looking a little dazed.
But a considerable amount of manpower and capital goes into making a film, mister. A man who ought to know better has no business looking away from reality.