[Studio 3]
Kim Mi-ra stood in front of the door and drew a deep breath.
On the day of the table read for , the moment a drama breaks ground always sets her heart going.
'Here it is again.'
She feels it at the start of every new drama, and it is always new. Sweat had gathered on both hands where she gripped the handle.
Bang—.
She opened the door and a wall of noise came pouring out.
Loud enough to deafen.
Tables and chairs set in an oval around a wide meeting room, with water bottles and name cards laid out on the tables.
'Doesn't look like everyone's here yet?'
Kim Mi-ra looked around. Her eyes rolled this way and that.
The person she was looking for was Seo Gang-woo.
'......Where is he? Will he settle in all right?'
With the poise he showed on the ad set he should adapt fast, but a child is a child.
Half worried, half expectant, she searched for him. And could not find him. What she found instead was......
'What's this?'
A crowd gathered in one spot.
Kim Mi-ra soon learned what that crowd was.
Any number of actors had already collected around Seo Gang-woo.
"So your name's Gang-woo~ your commercial came on right after the drama uncle here was in."
"You saw that ad too, sunbae-nim? It was a face I'd never seen, so it surprised me. I assumed anyone with that face would have debuted already. He said it was his first project, didn't he. And writer Kim Mi-ra dug him up?"
In the warm mood of it, Seo Gang-woo shook his head and pulled Choi Do-hyun in beside him.
"The writer came second. Uncle asked me first whether I wanted to try acting!"
"Ahem. Yes. I dug him up first."
"That's right. You two were in the commercial together."
"Well now, actor Choi. Good eye, as ever. Best look of any child actor going, isn't he? Gang-woo. You'll be quite something when you grow up."
"Thank you!"
"......So cute. Gang-woo. Can noona pull on your cheek for a second? That isn't makeup, is it? Like a glutinous rice cake. All squishy."
Choi Do-hyun was shrugging his shoulders, and actress Gu Ha-rin, who had been eyeing Seo Gang-woo's cheek for her chance, could not hold out any longer and started gushing.
Writer Kim Mi-ra let out a small laugh.
Because everything she had worried about felt pointless now.
'Gang-woo, of course. He's a hit wherever he goes.'
Relieved of the worry, Kim Mi-ra exchanged greetings with the actors.
Apart from the newcomers they were all people whose faces she had seen at least once, so simple pleasantries went around.
Kim Mi-ra dropped into her seat. The hard chair pressed at her back.
The writer's seat is at the very head of the table. Beside it the lead usually sits.
Kim Mi-ra caught the eye of Choi Do-hyun, who was just settling in.
Kim Mi-ra said in a sulky voice.
"Sweetheart, I hear you had all the fun without me. An acting contest? You made him fight the old child actor to the death?"
"Not quite to the death. How did you find out?"
"There's nothing in this business I don't know about?"
Actor Ra Ju-hyun had contacted her separately.
A declaration that she accepted her defeat and would raise no further objection — for someone hoping the noise would die down there was nothing to do but welcome it with both hands.
But a somewhat odd request had followed.
-I'd like it if you let Ji-yun come and watch the set.
A request for the courtesy of letting the previous child actor visit the site. There was no reason not to.
Besides, Min Ji-yun is a child actor with a good reputation.
Considering her prospects and her attitude, it was worth making the acquaintance.
Choi Do-hyun said with a smile.
"So sunbae-nim Ra told you."
"Yes. She said Gang-woo's acting was extraordinary. Too good for the two of them to have kept it to themselves. You have no sense about this sort of thing, do you? You should have had a camcorder rolling for something like that."
Writer Kim Mi-ra let a reproachful look slide at Choi Do-hyun.
"Sorry. Sunbae-nim came at us so hard I never thought of it. You can see it today, can't you? Right?"
"......You have to give me the time, though."
"Time?"
"Never mind, it's nothing."
Choi Do-hyun looked puzzled at the small voice, which had come out almost as a mutter.
Instead of answering, Kim Mi-ra waved a hand about.
Time. There was almost no time.
A table read usually starts a week before shooting begins.
Which means the script and the shooting schedule are already fixed by the time of the crank-in.
The problem was that Kim Mi-ra was thinking about extra screen time for Seo Gang-woo.
'How can I leave that face as a one-episode part?'
The early ratings bump Kim Mi-ra forecast on seeing Seo Gang-woo's face was three percent.
A child actor everyone thought was only handsome turns out to be able to act as well?
The drama's message boards would obviously go into meltdown.
'They'll be howling for more of him. The way I see it, that boy gets a fan club the second the episode airs.'
Leaving a gem like that lying there would be a disgrace to a drama writer.
In fact Kim Mi-ra had already worked out the scenes she would use for the extra material.
The problem is the pushback she can expect.
The episode Seo Gang-woo appears in is episode two.
Touch up an early episode? The cast, the production team, every department would howl about what on earth she thought she was doing.
Kim Mi-ra shook her head side to side.
She needed to bring her excitement down.
'......It won't be too late to decide after I've watched him act.'
Only five minutes until the table read. Photographers and reporters who had come for the promotional shoot were gathering.
"Writer. Shall we begin?"
Camera flashes began going off in bursts. The man across from Kim Mi-ra, wearing a cap pulled low, spoke.
It was Lee Jae-won, the PD of .
Shaggy stubble and eyes that make him look a little slow, but appearances aside, this is a PD whose first credited work landed an average rating in the twenties.
Kim Mi-ra nodded with a smile.
A room where anticipation and nerves lived side by side, and the PD's voice rang out through it.
"Right, we'll begin now!"
It was the moment the room's warmth went silent in a single stroke.
***
is a sixteen-episode mini-series.
Since it is not a drama that completes every episode in advance and then airs, the script is finished only through episode ten so far.
'Even ten is a lot. There are dramas that finish four and then produce in real time.'
So does all ten episodes' worth get unpacked at the table read? Of course not.
The stretch the actors will perform today is episodes one and two.
In the meeting room where the table read is running, Kim Mi-ra put a forefinger to her lips and nodded.
'Everyone's solid enough.'
Nothing grated badly through to the back half of episode one.
Choi Do-hyun delivered fine work, as befits an actor of his craft, and neither the female lead Gu Ha-rin nor the supporting cast broke his rhythm.
It was the textbook picture of a table read.
Everyone takes the force out of it and shows the character they came having analysed.
And even so they leave a little space in the acting, room for the PD and the writer to spread the wings of their imagination.
'Still, it's a bit of a shame. I wish there were something stronger in it.'
Kim Mi-ra smacked her lips.
She feels it every time, but the atmosphere on a drama differs from one to the next, and differs far too much.
There are dramas where everyone treats everyone else as a rival and competes at acting with fire in their eyes, and there are places like this one, where it is all laughter and ends the read in a comfortable mood from start to finish.
Kim Mi-ra tends to prefer the former.
Because the inspiration that bursts out when actors trade blows for real is fierce to her.
'Well, this mood isn't bad either. It also means the production is running smoothly.'
Satisfied, she went on watching.
Episode one finished and it was time to start episode two. She thought about taking a short break, but.
"Let's just carry straight on!"
At Choi Do-hyun's suggestion they decided to continue as they were.
Choi Do-hyun threw a knowing look at Seo Gang-woo.
'......Right, there was Gang-woo.'
The acting Ra Ju-hyun and Choi Do-hyun had praised to the skies.
How good could he be, that the high-nosed actor Ra Ju-hyun declared herself beaten?
Kim Mi-ra was holding her breath and waiting for his turn with anticipation when.
"So?"
Seo Gang-woo's mouth opened. It was one sentence.
The attention of actors who had been showing signs of fatigue from a table read that had run without a pause converged on Seo Gang-woo.
"Where am I supposed to go? My mom, who's sleeping with a university student? My dad, who's set up house with another woman? Which one's the better choice?"
The veteran actor who had been rolling a pen and scratching his ear, and the actor who had been yawning behind a hand, both stopped what they were doing in the same instant.
The grief Ra Ju-hyun had spoken of meeting came down over the room.
Kim Mi-ra could not master the smile rising in her.
Gooseflesh crawled up over her skin like ants marching.
A child actor with an excellent look? No. That boy is a genius.
She knows it because she is the writer who wrote this script.
This script cannot produce emotion that rich.
What she had written was a few lines of dialogue and one stage direction saying that the character called Jun-yeong is fidgeting with his fingers.
'He filled the space between them.'
Filling with imagination the blanks the writer made.
That is an actor's role, and an actor's capacity.
Seo Gang-woo was doing easily what adult actors struggle with when they are new.
And did the others feel it too?
The air in the read-through room changed.
Actors who had been reading their lines in comfortable postures straightened their backs and looked down at their scripts.
A small ball shot into the sky by one child actor.
'I have to secure the extra screen time, no matter what.'
The eyes behind the red horn-rimmed glasses filled with certainty.
***
"Thank you all!"
After the read ended, the sound of chairs dragging broke out all at once.
The actors headed in one direction.
The corner of the meeting room where Seo Gang-woo was, and the same scene as before the read unfolded all over again.
In a word, a cauldron of enthusiasm.
"Gang-woo! What are you! Didn't you say this was your first time acting? Have you been taking lessons somewhere?"
"No. I practised on my own."
"Come on, don't lie to me. You can be honest with your uncle here. How could you possibly, on your own......"
A veteran male actor made a fuss of showing his doubt.
Choi Do-hyun, letting out a low laugh, explained on his behalf.
"Sunbae-nim. Gang-woo really has never learned acting. He only got an agency about two weeks ago."
"......He's got an agency too? Well, well, the leaf is different from the bud with you."
"Anyway. When your shooting schedule is set, tell your uncle too. I'll definitely come and watch."
"Yes! Can I come and watch too?"
"Aigo, of course. When Gang-woo comes, uncle will buy you something good. Do you like family restaurants? Assistant director! We're having drinks after the first shoot, aren't we? Gang-woo's coming too, right?"
Seo Gang-woo's particular gift for getting along left an even better impression on the admiring actors.
Among them there was one who, regardless of any of that, was fixed on something strange as she stared at Seo Gang-woo.
It was Gu Ha-rin, in the role of the female lead.
"Gang-woo. Can noona pull on your cheek?"
"Why does Ha-rin keep trying to pull on Gang-woo's cheek?"
"Because he's so smol."
"Smol?"
"Cute-and-smol."
"You can touch it, noona."
"This is far too addictive......"
"......I want a turn too."
"Writer! You touch Gang-woo's cheek as well!"
"Huh? She looks busy."
The uproar does not let up.
One of the actors spotted Kim Mi-ra and called out to her.
But Kim Mi-ra went past without so much as a reply, walking fast.
Only one thought had room in her head.
"Hello, bureau chief?"
That she had to secure Seo Gang-woo's screen time immediately.
The number she had called was the KBC drama bureau chief's.