Acting in Korea

I have been working hard as an actress in South Korea for a year now, and while I am often tired and pretty poor, I love the work itself. However physically demanding, I always find the strength to keep going, even in the little morning hours. It is, after all, one of the only two passions I have that I can see as work without being labelled as 'work' in my mind.

Acting is LITERALLY all over the place in Korea. Not only for foreigners, but for big stars as well. Scheduled dates get push back, last minute shoots appear out of nowhere. There is literally nothing that is sure until you find you self in the makeup room. And then the script might actually change.

But it is rewarding. You get triple of the fun. You think of how you want to bring out the character to life and you imagine how things might unfold.

Then you get to the actual set, and act things out, and nothing is like you expected. Sometimes you get the time to go behind the director and stare at the raw cuts as they review the shots, what with the lighting and other actors in the shot.

Then later, usually much later, you get to see yourself on the screen, with all the viewers of the show you made. There is something constantly alive about acting, that is beautiful, like a good leather that only gets better as time wares it off, showing finer details and beautiful imperfections.

Then you watch to improve.

What could have been better.

Try not to judge and think you did badly, because there is always something that does make you think so, see it as a constant work on yourself. When people say it's great, look more and find the flaw to better on the next shoot.

The best shoots are not the one-time contracts. They are the ones you do a few weeks in a row, because you get to think of how you want to come out, and actually get to improve in a similar context.

I did such a show this summer for a few months with mbc cni (생방송 오늘저녁) and am starting a new one with the channel KTV (퀴즈왕 헤피 트라이앵글). Here is the link to watch the episodes of the latter: http://www.ktv.go.kr/program/home/PG2160043D/main ).

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