Holding the interview script, I sat back deep in a practice room chair.
Each time I turned a page, the rustle of paper filled the quiet space lightly.
The first page.
Light questions about the drama and the MZ Vitamin commercial ran on. But the further back the pages went, the more the mood shifted.
— Since the controversy five years ago, how have you been taking the public's reaction?
— Is there anything about the incident at the time you'd like to speak about directly?
— What kind of time did you spend over these five years?
I read the questions over slowly.
The questions themselves didn't frighten me.
The real problem was how to say them in front of a camera.
I'd spent years living in avoidance of cameras.
The old me would have thought an interview was over once you memorized the script.
But now was different.
No matter how perfectly I prepared the script, one unexpected sentence, one line, could crack it open.
Could I hold my composure even in that moment?
Could I really defend myself with words?
I drew a breath and quietly opened the script again.
And a clear sense woke inside me.
'Serpent's Tongue.'
A title that sees straight through the power of words.
The power to grasp the grain of language and load it with emotion. Words weren't armor wrapped around me anymore. They were a sword I could swing.
I read it again line by line. The polished sentences unwound naturally into my own way of speaking.
What tone to start on, where to pause to move people's hearts. The breath and rhythm of the words started coming through clearly.
But my hand stopped on one sentence.
'Over that time I reflected a great deal and tried to grow.'
I rubbed at the sentence lightly with a fingertip.
'Reflected? Grew?'
Five years ago, I was made the perpetrator of a power abuse incident I never committed. The world reached its verdict without a chance for me to explain the injustice, and after that day I turned my back on cameras and stages and endured.
Reflection? I just endured to survive.
I couldn't stand in front of the public, and no opportunity was given to me.
But this line the company had prepared packaged all of that time as a story completed by a 'matured person.'
'Is saying this as written really the right thing?'
People would probably say something like this.
'Well, at least he reflected.'
'Guess he's doing better now.'
But words like those weren't the words I wanted to hear.
I closed the script and quietly shut my eyes.
And I slowly sorted it out.
What I had to say, and how to say it.
This wasn't an interview meant to say what people wanted to hear. It was the question of how to deliver what I wanted to say.
This isn't acting.
This is my story.
The time I endured.
The things I protected.
The pain and the injustice I felt.
I had to make that persuasive through words, so it wouldn't look like a single line of 'excuse.'
And I had the conviction that it was possible.
Because the me of now can act with words too.
Just then, the practice room door opened.
Ji-ho hyung stuck his head in.
"Eun-yul, it's time. Let's go."
I quietly lifted the script. My fingertips weren't trembling anymore.
This wasn't a place for reciting answers someone else had written.
Today, I was going to speak a story I'd made myself.
***
Ten minutes before the interview.
The MC quietly walked a lap around the set-up studio.
Three cameras, two lights, recorders laid out neatly in the center of the table.
Most of the reporters had taken their places too, and now only he, the host, needed to sit down.
Today's interview had a different grain from the usual. An actor returning to an official appearance after five years, Cha Eun-yul.
The MC composed himself and quietly ordered his thoughts.
'This interview isn't going to be easy.'
An interview with an actor always calls for care.
Especially with someone returning after a long absence.
An actor who hasn't stood before the public for years has no choice but to weigh every single word.
Because the rumors and misunderstandings built up over that time, or feelings left unsettled, could detonate on a single question.
The burden was heavy from the MC's side too.
Throw a sensitive question badly and the mood of the interview could be ruined, while doing nothing but dodging would disappoint the reporters and the viewers alike.
Comeback interviews in particular play a decisive role in an actor's 'image reset,' so no one in the room could treat that air lightly.
What kind of person Cha Eun-yul was, and how the interview would flow, he still had no read on.
Just then the MC spotted Cha Eun-yul's manager and quietly went over.
"Hello. Could I greet the actor briefly right now, just to get a feel for the mood?"
The manager glanced at his watch and nodded.
"Yes, now is fine for a moment. He's inside."
The MC gave a light greeting and walked quietly toward the waiting room door.
He knocked and stepped carefully inside, where Cha Eun-yul sat quietly turning the pages of the interview script.
Only the sound of paper turning filled the small space.
"Hello, actor Cha Eun-yul. Thank you for agreeing to the interview."
Cha Eun-yul raised his head and greeted him briefly.
"Ah... yes, hello."
His words trailed off, and his eyes wandered around the room. Even in that short greeting, the tension came through plainly.
The MC spoke lightly, trying to loosen the mood.
"You're appearing officially for the first time in five years. How are you feeling?"
"Ah... I'm a little nervous."
Cha Eun-yul's fingertips trembled faintly, and he kept shifting in his seat.
'He's definitely nervous.'
The MC weighed it for a moment.
Normally he'd have carried the conversation on naturally, but right now he worried that saying more would only add pressure.
"It's fine. Once we start, it'll loosen up quickly."
The MC said it with a short smile, then quietly left the waiting room. Back in the studio, he sat in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment.
'This... isn't going to be easy.'
A nervous guest, high expectations, careful questions. Carrying all of that smoothly came down, in the end, to him as the host.
"Beginning the shoot!"
At that moment, along with a staff member's call, the studio door opened.
And Cha Eun-yul came in.
"...Huh?"
Bewilderment flashed through the MC's eyes for an instant.
This was a completely different person from the one who had been hunched with nerves only minutes ago.
Cha Eun-yul came forward slowly with an unhurried stride and took his seat.
No trembling in the fingertips, no wavering in the eyes. Even the way he sat at the table was solid and natural.
The atmosphere had changed.
He was now, to anyone's eyes, a man who was prepared.
The MC stared at him blankly.
What had happened in the space of a few minutes?
But the curiosity lasted only a moment. Soon the cameras found focus and the lights came on.
The first official interview in five years.
Now it was time to begin.
***
The studio lights lit Cha Eun-yul. The reporters' eyes converged on his face all at once.
In the stillness, every shutter click, every breath came through distinctly.
The MC carefully adjusted his microphone position and looked at him.
Cha Eun-yul took a sip of water and drew a light breath. The cameras were already rolling, and his every movement was being recorded in real time.
Right at this moment, perhaps the entire country was watching this scene.
"Hello, actor Cha Eun-yul. It really has been a long time."
At the MC's opening greeting, Cha Eun-yul smiled quietly and nodded.
"Yes, it has been a long time. I'm glad to be greeting you like this."
His voice was low and steady.
The first sentence alone gave the impression that he had a firm grip on his own center.
"It's your first official interview in five years. Aren't you very nervous?"
It was a light question meant to loosen things up a little. But the answer that came back was unexpected.
"Honestly I was nervous until a moment ago. But once I actually sat in front of the camera, I got comfortable instead. I think I've missed a place like this... more than I realized."
Short, but a solid tone.
The MC stopped short for a second.
Because it was completely different from the man in the waiting room.
The uneasy gaze, the blurred speech, the fingertips that kept moving—
None of those traces were anywhere on his face now.
'He's far steadier than I expected...?'
Carrying his curiosity with him, the MC continued the interview.
"Your acting in the MZ Vitamin commercial became a talking point. Was there any particular story from the shoot?"
Cha Eun-yul nodded with a smile.
"Actually... that was my regular convenience store. I'd only dropped in to buy a snack, and they happened to be filming.
The director suddenly asked me if I had a little time... and that's how I ended up appearing as an extra."
"So... completely spontaneous casting? Did you get paid?"
"Yes, it was 100,000 won. He said I'd done well and added more. I saw a 50,000 note in his wallet, and he handed me 40,000."
A small laugh broke out among the reporters.
An actor they'd expected to be stiff somehow was speaking more honestly and cheerfully than anticipated.
'He's quietly got some wit to him......'
The MC nodded, mildly surprised. A session that had started heavy with tension was gradually unwinding into the flow of natural conversation.
But just as the mood was loosening bit by bit, the reporters' bearing changed.
And the expected question came.
"Since the controversy five years ago, how have you been taking the public's reaction?"
The studio went quiet in an instant. The reporters' eyes turned on him sharply.
But Cha Eun-yul didn't hurry to answer.
Instead he picked up the water bottle and took a sip. Buying time deliberately, preparing to speak.
Just then the MC opened his mouth carefully.
"Actually, after the controversy at the time, it was legally concluded that there was no case, wasn't it?"
Cha Eun-yul quietly took hold of the microphone.
"Five years was... longer for me than I expected."
The reporters held their breath.
Everyone waited for his next words.
"What I thought about most during that time was... 'what kind of person was I.'"
The camera lens lit him head-on.
He looked slowly around at the reporters.
"The me back then agonized a great deal, as an actor and as a person. How does the public see me? Will I ever be able to stand in this place again?"
His voice was composed.
Neither forced into a shape nor exaggerated.
The reporters listened quietly.
"But one thing is certain. Over that time, I never let go of acting."
A short, decisive sentence.
The reporters were slightly thrown by an answer that poured out neither excuses nor grievance.
Cha Eun-yul was simply talking about 'the time he'd endured as an actor.'
In that moment—
From a corner of the studio, one reporter suddenly threw out a question.
"In the past you were a Best Actor nominee, but the power abuse incident broke and you lost that chance, didn't you? At the time your agency criticized reporters over the power abuse controversy. Do you think the reporters obstructed you?"
The MC was thrown for a second.
This reporter wasn't one of the invited ones.
"You don't have to answer."
He said it quietly to Cha Eun-yul in a small voice.
But—
Cha Eun-yul smiled lightly and shook his head side to side.
And he lifted the microphone.
"Obstructed? Hardly."
The reporters held their breath. Cha Eun-yul spoke calmly.
"It was only delayed a little. If I work that much harder for the delay, I think I'll be able to receive it someday."
Then he continued with an awkward smile.
"Haha. Though right now I fall well short."
The reporter who had kept pressing to the end let out a short sigh.
"I understand that you're declaring a comeback as an actor. But the public's eyes haven't fully come back around yet. What do you think about that?"
Cha Eun-yul gave a brief smile.
"I'll accept those eyes too. An actor is in a profession where you can't avoid the public's gaze."
The reporter, faced with an attitude nothing like what he'd expected, was momentarily lost for words. He'd come to attack and ended up flustered instead.
Watching that, the MC thought,
'Perfect.'
Cha Eun-yul had neither directly denied the past controversy nor admitted to it.
Instead he was emphasizing who he was now, telling the public his own resolve.
The MC threw out the last question.
"Having passed through all of this time, how does it feel to stand before the public again?"
Cha Eun-yul lifted the microphone.
"Whether you waited for me, or whether you still doubt me, I respect all of those reactions."
Camera flashes burst one after another.
"The one thing I'd like to promise is... that from here on, as a person named Cha Eun-yul and as an actor, I'll do my very best."
The MC drew a short breath.
And he realized.
Cha Eun-yul was back.