"Nervous?"
When I turned my head, actor Kwon Jeong-ryul was looking at me.
His lightly smiling face looked relaxed.
"It's been a while, hasn't it? A set like this."
I smiled for a moment and nodded.
"Yes. Still... I'm getting used to it."
He nodded and said,
"That's just how being an actor is, isn't it. It feels like changing jobs every time the project changes. I've decided to enjoy that jitter now."
I smiled slightly.
"You're right. It's nerve-racking, but... it's not bad. Thanks to these nerves I feel alive again."
His eyes brightened and he nodded.
"I like that, you know? That mindset. I'll be looking forward to it."
"Me too. I look forward to working with you."
Just then the entrance to the reading room opened and two people appeared.
PD Lee Woo-seok and writer Yoo Ye-jin.
The room went quiet in an instant, and the actors straightened up one by one and turned their eyes.
PD Lee Woo-seok walked in with his usual relaxed expression, and writer Yoo Ye-jin already had her script in hand, focused.
Now the script reading for 'The Temperature of a Meal' was about to formally begin.
The reading room fell silent.
PD Lee Woo-seok, seated at the head, tapped the microphone a couple of times and spoke in a calm voice.
"Before we begin the script reading, I'd like to ask for introductions. Starting with our lead, Jin Seo-yeon-ssi."
The first to rise was Jin Seo-yeon, the lead of this drama.
She wore a graceful smile and introduced herself in a composed voice.
"Hello. I'm Jin Seo-yeon. In this project I'm playing the lead, 'Kim Mi-rae.' I'll do my best so we can make something good. I look forward to working with all of you."
When she finished, the room naturally filled with applause.
Next, the male lead Yoon Ji-hoo rose with a smile and introduced himself.
In a confident voice, he showed his resolve as an actor.
After that, the supporting actors and bit players rose in turn and exchanged greetings.
Each briefly introduced the role they were playing, a time for everyone to register one another's presence.
And then—
Now it was my turn. At the same moment, a camera turned my way.
I felt my heart give one great thud.
My palms went a little cold. Kwon Jeong-ryul's words came back to me.
- I'm just going to enjoy it.
My fingertips were still cold, but somewhere in my chest a small courage was blooming.
'It's fine. I'm not running this time.'
I slowly rose from my seat. I could feel every gaze turn toward me.
That familiar, yet still unfamiliar weight.
As much like myself and as confidently as possible. For this moment at least, I had to face the camera by my own will, without the title's power.
I made my voice as natural and as composed as I could.
"Hello. I'm Cha Eun-yul. In this drama I'll be playing Yoo Dae-yeong. This is the first time in five years that I've held a script in my hands. I'll fall short in a lot of ways, but I'm going to begin again."
The room filled with applause once more. Listening to it, I felt a strange emotion.
'Ah... a day like this really came around again.'
As if I were sitting on a cloud, every gaze was on me, and that applause felt like it was holding me up.
I hadn't even been certain I could come back to this seat. And now, here I was, receiving applause as an actor.
The moment I'd dreamed of.
And that moment had finally become real.
Once all the actors' introductions were finished, the microphone passed to writer Yoo Ye-jin.
She looked quietly at her script and smiled.
"Hello. I'm the writer, Yoo Ye-jin."
She looked around at the actors and staff for a moment, as if overcome.
"Seeing the people from my script breathing and alive right in front of me is really moving. All of you are wonderful. I'll keep writing hard so I don't let such wonderful people down."
At her words the actors and staff smiled and nodded.
And then the microphone went back to PD Lee Woo-seok.
He looked around at each person one by one and gave a warm smile.
"I believe this project will be a truly precious stretch of time in all of your lives. Thank you sincerely for spending that precious time on our drama. I hope we can make an enjoyable, happy time of it together."
At that last greeting, filled with sincerity, the air in the room grew warmer still.
Light applause spread among the actors and staff, and the tense mood slowly loosened.
The actors quietly opened their scripts in their seats. Only the brief rustle of turning paper sounded.
In the moment when no one spoke and even the sound of breathing had thinned out, PD Lee Woo-seok opened his mouth.
"All right, we'll begin the script reading."
At PD Lee Woo-seok's signal, every actor seated at the table lifted their script.
The room went silent in an instant.
Jin Seo-yeon, the lead who had the first line, slowly spoke.
"...Haa... transferred out to a country town like this......"
The moment her first words came out, the actors naturally seeped into the mood of the script.
Tension began to hang over the quiet reading room.
As the lead actors traded lines, the atmosphere flipped straight into focus mode.
The actors weren't simply reading the script. They were expressing their characters using expression and gesture too.
"Manager Kim Mi-rae, do you think this is right?"
Yoon Ji-hoo, playing the male lead, threw out his line in a weighty voice with inflection worked into it.
His delivery was natural, and as the lines went back and forth the mood of the scene was woven tighter and tighter.
I quietly held my script and watched.
The actors here weren't simply reading words. They had become the characters for real.
And when one scene ended—
"Seo-yeon-ssi."
PD Lee Woo-seok tapped the script with a finger and spoke quietly.
"This line isn't her agonizing. It's a flow where the emotion gradually rises. Let's try starting with a bit of hesitation, then moving into a feeling of certainty from the middle."
Jin Seo-yeon nodded and looked at the script again.
"Ah, yes. Then I'll start in a lower tone and......"
She read the line again.
This time the unsettled emotion at the start was expressed more clearly, and after that a mood of gradually finding certainty took shape.
PD Lee Woo-seok nodded with a satisfied expression.
"Good. Let's go with that."
When the supporting actors' turn came, the tension in the room grew thicker still.
Since it was the first time they were matching their acting to each other, the actors' focus climbed even higher.
When one supporting actor hesitated slightly before a line, the actor beside him naturally threw out his own line and matched the tempo for him.
Writer Yoo Ye-jin watched and said with a small laugh,
"I really like a natural flow like that just now. When you're trading lines, I'd love it if you made it feel just a little more like real conversation."
The supporting actors nodded and took up their scripts again.
The look in their eyes was even more immersed than a moment before.
I watched quietly and swallowed my nerves.
'So they give feedback right on the spot at the important scenes......'
The script readings of my past naturally came to mind.
When I shot the sitcom there was no script reading at all, and in the two projects I appeared in afterward, feedback came from the director on set rather than at a reading.
'So the mood really does differ by director and by project.'
An environment quite different from what I was used to.
Which meant there was that much more to learn.
I tightened my grip on the script a little without thinking.
My turn was coming up soon.
'Once that scene ends......'
My heart was speeding up little by little.
My fingertips trembled slightly, but I wasn't flustered.
I'd known this moment would come, and I'd prepared over and over right up until I arrived at the reading room. Even the tension I felt now wasn't unfamiliar.
I slowly drew a breath and looked down at the script again.
No one here knows the trembling in my heart.
So I too had to look unbothered, like an actor who was prepared.
I slowly looked down at the script.
Just then, PD Lee Woo-seok turned a page and said,
"Next, scene 46. Dae-yeong, on his way home after his shift, witnesses Su-hyeon and her boyfriend arguing."
Then he added, turning to me,
"Eun-yul-ssi, this scene will unfold from Yoo Dae-yeong's point of view, so I need you to hold the emotional line well. He can be expressionless on the outside, but there has to be a wave underneath. The camera is going to catch that."
I drew a deep breath.
"Yes, understood."
The room went quiet. The actors opened their scripts and began finding the flow.
Eo Su-hyeon threw out her line first, loaded with strong emotion.
"Let go! I said let go!"
At that resonant voice the space filled with tension in one stroke.
The male actor answered in a low, rough voice.
"What's the matter, we still have things to talk about."
Eo Su-hyeon shouted, breath heaving.
"I said that's enough!!"
In that instant the whole reading room fell into silence. Everyone was immersed in this scene.
Next came the scene where the woman shoves the man aside and walks quickly out of the alley.
I looked down at my script quietly and found the timing. Now it was my turn.
She came toward me. I raised my eyes.
It was Su-hyeon. Eo Su-hyeon's ragged breathing rang through the reading room. Anger and sorrow were mixed in her eyes. But she soon looked away and brushed past me.
In that moment my fingertips trembled faintly. I followed that emotion and immersed again.
And when the man grabbed Su-hyeon's arm roughly, I felt my hand tighten without meaning to.
Right after that, the other actor spat out his line in a provocative tone.
"Hey, you look cheap at a glance, so don't act expensive. Putting on airs when you don't even have parents......"
Those words struck the back of my mind. The air in the room settled heavily. Someone drew a breath. Everyone was in the silence, waiting for the next beat.
I wasn't looking at the script. The lines were already memorized, and the emotion was boiling in my chest.
This wasn't simple anger. Suppressed feeling had detonated at that one sentence.
I clenched my fist. I pushed the chair back slightly and leaned my upper body forward.
The look in my eyes changed.
I slowly raised my head toward the other actor. And I did exactly as the stage direction in the script said.
SLAM—!!
I struck the table.
The reading room rang with it. Several staff and actors flinched reflexively.
Without blinking once, still seated exactly where I was, I slowly opened my mouth.
"Hey."
A heavy voice.
The room sank into silence.
Everyone was looking at me.
A stillness in which even breathing seemed to have stopped.
I took that atmosphere in whole and delivered the last line.
"You run your mouth just because you've got one? Watch what you say, you bastard."
A weight like the air tearing.
And then—
"Wow......"
Even after that short exclamation, PD Lee Woo-seok said nothing for a long while.
As if sorting something out in his head, he couldn't take his eyes off me. And then he slowly nodded.
Silence still hung in the reading room, but the atmosphere had changed.
One supporting actor narrowed his eyes and nodded, and writer Yoo Ye-jin set her pencil down on her script with a subtle smile.
In that moment, something got through.
The instinct that my acting had landed.
The trembling was gone.
My breath still came short, but it wasn't fear anymore. My acting had proven that I had the right to be in this seat.