I Will Live As An Actor - Chapter 1

I will live as an actor, episode 1,

Moth.

Like a moth flying towards a whitish light.

It was a failed life.

Of course, if you look at it from someone else’s perspective, it may have been a successful life.

But if there were weights on the scales of life, you would definitely be the one struggling to maintain your balance and then falling over.

I was a guy who was very suited to being called a country bumpkin. Busan is known as the second capital, but I was born and raised in Yeongdo, which is considered the outskirts of Busan, and my brain grew as I smelled the strong accents of sailors and the smell of the sea.

“Oh my, England came first again!”

My mother, who opened a fish stall at Namhang Market, accepted the report card and ate it with wrinkled hands. At that time, my mother probably had no idea. The fact that your son lies often and has been forging report cards to get pocket money.

When I was young, I was embarrassed by my mother selling fish at the market, and I hated the fishy smell on her hands. I tried to ignore it because it felt like it was showing me the bottom of my life, but like black skin, it had become a permanent part of my life.

“England, are you going to be mayor?”

Even when my mother came home from the stall late in the evening, she did not hesitate to set the table. My mother hand-cut the bones of the thick, meaty mackerel and placed it in a bowl of rice. He must have wanted to give up everything for his only son. But at the time, I was a childish child and couldn’t understand my mother’s deep feelings.

“I need to buy a tutorial.”

“How much do you need?”

“Ten thousand won.”

The mother took out a crumpled 10,000 won bill from her pants and handed it to her son. You didn’t look unhappy at all even though your wages for a day were paid out all at once. Rather, the feeling of regret that I could only give him this was overflowing from the corners of his wrinkled eyes.

Even when I was in middle school, my mother thought I was good at studying. Forged report cards were always used in the school district, so my mother’s expectations must have been that high. However, after entering high school, my mother’s expectations were filled with disappointment.

Before I knew it, I was smoking cigarettes and hanging out with delinquent students. After wasting my school years like that, all that was left was my college entrance exam score report, which I was embarrassed to show to others. If I had gotten good grades on the entrance exam, would I have felt less guilty about my mother?

[Jang Young-guk, an applicant for the Department of Theater and Film at Hanyoung University.]

It was not my intention to become an actor from the beginning. I applied because I saw famous actors living in the spotlight and living in luxury apartments with a clear view of the Han River. This was possible because, due to the nature of the theater and film department, they do not look at CSAT scores often. However, I was able to discover an unexpected talent during the entrance interview.

“Acting is a talent. Some things can be acquired, but innate talent is important. Today, this is an opportunity to find out how talented Jang Young-guk is. Would you like to act out the passages and lines in the script?”

In response to Professor Noh’s question, I looked down at the script. It was the role of a murderer. A cynical and thoroughly calculating psychopath. Additionally, he is a person who has no hesitation about killing people as if he were eating a meal. It was the story of a person who lived a life he had never lived before. It was a short line, but the moment I read the script, I felt assimilated with the character.

actor.

I wanted to become an actor. I wanted to become a famous actor and become famous. But as time passed, I naturally came to realize it.

My talent is as weak as that of a firefly, and there are many people in the world whose talents bloom as brightly as the sun. But I didn’t give up. I was confident that I would do anything to achieve success. Even when I skipped meals and filled my stomach with tap water, I never left the theater, and eventually my talent, which was as feeble as a firefly, began to ignite.

Did heaven help me like that? One day, I was noticed by a famous producer and given a supporting role in a weekend drama. However, the drama failed due to the poor performance of the idol who was cast as the lead actor.

The terrestrial weekend drama recorded single-digit viewership ratings, so I guess all is said and done. Fortunately, I was able to take on other dramas and movies due to people who noticed my acting. Of course, it’s a supporting role, not a lead role. That is, in the role of licorice.

Supporting role.

In some ways, it might have been too much for me. Everything was awkward for me to play the lead role. Even though it is a world where men who prefer eyes without double eyelids and have dark skin are popular because they are sexy, it was a story that was far from me.

He was tall, over 180cm, but who would have thought that he would turn out to be poisonous. If he were shorter, he would have been able to play a more diverse role in supporting roles. Because of his pockmarked face, fierce appearance, and towering height, strangers would have misunderstood him as a gangster, and he was not at all attractive to be used as a leading role.

But still I didn’t give up. I wanted to put forth all my capabilities under the given conditions. Thanks to this, Jang Young-guk’s nickname at that time was simple and clear.

Crazy guy.

Whether it was a drama or a movie, he acted regardless of how big or small the role was. I read and re-read the script to the point where it was worn out, and there was nothing I wouldn’t do to immerse myself in the role I was given. Thanks to this, the staff on set openly called me ‘crazy’ for my acting. I didn’t mean it in a bad way. After all, for an actor, acting is his face and life.

-Shall my son’s mother go up with the cupboard?

“That’s it. Don’t come.”

Even when I was over 30 and approaching 40, my mother only looked at me like a hedgehog caring for its young. However, your son felt ashamed of his mother.

At the year-end awards ceremony, when he won the Best Actor Award, which was unusual for a supporting actor, he never mentioned his mother even in his acceptance speech. Because Jang Young-guk was intentionally erasing the shadow of poverty from his life. I consoled myself by saying that I was just being filial by sending money to my mother every month.

Now that he has become a famous actor and has an apartment with a clear view of the Han River, he hates seeing his mother. To be precise, I didn’t want others to see the shame of poverty. Just like when I was a child, I hated the fishy smell of fish more than any other bad smell.

To a solid degree.

It was after he became so famous that there was no one in Korea who did not know the name Jang Young-guk. He also achieved great success as an actor and even achieved wealth unenviable by others. but.

It was around that time. Trouble has come into my life again.

-This is Yeongdo Hospital. Are you Mr. Jang Young-guk?

A sudden contact from my hometown. My mother had collapsed. Stroke and myocardial infarction. Her frail body, which had accumulated fatigue from all kinds of labor, could not endure it and eventually collapsed. It was only after arriving at Yeongdo Hospital in Busan that I was able to see my mother’s face.

My mother looked much older than the mother I remembered. His face was grizzled by the sea breeze, like an old man over eighty years old.

“Son…your face has become very thin.”

The mother said, struggling to raise her hand and caress her son. Only then did I realize it. What I wanted to erase so much was not the shadow of poverty but my mother. Yes, I was a bastard. I regretted it and regretted it again. Stroking my mother’s face, which was full of age spots.

My mother died less than a week later.

A mother who did not want to leave the legacy of poverty to her son. He even hid a bankbook containing every penny he had saved in the closet. Uncontrollable tears turned into wailing and rose like a tide.

The world felt dark, and I spent each day relying on alcohol. There was no one looking for me anymore, whether it was Chungmuro or a broadcasting station. I lived the rest of my life like a vagabond. I felt sorry to my mother who was watching from heaven, but there was nothing left for me anymore. Everything felt empty, as if black paint had been spread throughout my brain.

I wanted to see the end of my life. I didn’t have the confidence to see my mother properly even after death. The pride of having succeeded as an actor soon disappeared into dust, and only the face of an ugly child remained as a scar. I will definitely go to hell even when I die.

I carefully climbed onto the chair and hung my neck from the rope hanging from the ceiling. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to end things like this. Like a fish soaked in salt, his alcohol-soaked body was extremely bony, and his eyes were sunken and had long since lost their shine.

Is it an illusion that my mother’s face appears faintly through unfocused pupils? It was then. Just then, a moth appeared from nowhere, saw the faint light on the ceiling, and flew towards it. Comrade Gil on the underworld is a moth.

“What are you flying so hard for?”

Let’s finish our resolutions and kick up our chairs.

Like a moth flying towards a whitish light.

The bony limbs fluttered in the air and went limp.