STARS ARE LITTLE

CHAPTER.1

Park Boyoung is proud of her professionalism. She deals with a lot of googly–eyes costars for more than a decade. And while she doesn’t really regards herself as beautiful, a lot of people think she’s pretty lovely, whether that comes from her appearance or bubbly demeanor. It doesn’t matter if her partner accidentally falls for her during the shooting. These feelings are fleeting anyway. It happens during the shooting and ends when the broadcast is finished. That is her world.

Boyoung has matured and learned first hand it is possible to have close guy friends. Even ones who once were her acting partners. It is their jobs to act and separate private feelings.

See Inguk was suddenly plunged into the world of make–believe at the ripe age of 25. He was first and foremost aspiring musician, not an actor. It’s not totally his fault that his first main lead experience involves one of the most heart fluttering script and characters ever created. He kinda fell into that confusion and whirlwind of feelings built up in the filming set. Is it a real crush or is it him mixing his character’s feelings for her? He struggled for some many months after, the fever peaked and slowly died down. But Inguk knew the answer, it was indeed a real crush, and professional actors shouldn’t go and fall for whoever their partners are every time they get cast. So he learned to keep the feelings checked and guarded, and he’s a fast learner.

Park Boyoung is quite tiny. Her small stature stands at lower than 160 cm. Her tiny facial features remind people of a bunny. She has got a calming voice and charming expressions. Whenever she’s not wearing clothes styled by someone else, she’s really the comfy type. And she talks a lot with her family and friends. She’s caring, yet she keeps distant quite well with her colleagues. She’s friendly, she plays along with everyone’s antics at work. But she doesn’t let anyone get inside easily. She doesn’t has many hobbies. She just stays with people she love, going home and plays with her nephew. Watch TV idly when a project is not on. She’s been straining her physical condition for some time and it has reached the point where she realised it would not heal on its own like when she were younger. Doesn’t help that she had always go all–in and hurt herself in the dedicating acting process.

Seo Inguk is manly. Broad shoulders and longlegs, he stands tall at 180 cm. He’s got a really, really bad eyesight just like his character counterpart Yoon-Yoonje. When he’s not at work wearing contact lens, he wears this thick ass pair of glasses that already get a slim treatment. He’s on diet most of the time when he signs on to a project, it seems like these interesting characters always need to look sharp or sly or poor or devil–may–care in one way or another to him. That’s why he kinda has a hate–hate relationship with chicken breasts.

Park Boyoung is popular almost all her life. Her existence invokes an older sister instinct in girls and and guys fall head over heels for her. There were bad times when teenagers were mean and people at school starts to view her as ‘different’ when she started to act. But otherwise, people are mostly very nice to her. Not that director who yelled at her all the time when she was first casted in a drama though.

Seo Inguk was so ordinary he was never in anyone’s radar in particular up until he became a winner of Superstar K. He had a pair of slanted, sharp eyes that doesn’t even match. Thus he signs OX whenever he’s in the mood to pay homage to his odd eyes. A mole, a dimple and quite a short philtrum earned him a Psyduck nickname in high school. He was rejected hundred of times on the way to stardom because he’s not particularly star–level slim. He lost tons of weights and yet he’s still haunted by the occasional return of fat until now. He was hurt, but he gets back at it and win over. He perseveres, and most importantly, he laughs a lot.

Park Boyoung acts with not a fiery passionate mindset, but a detail–oriented and sentimental one. She tries so hard to get into the heart of her own characters. What was Jae-in thinking when she decides to meet her celebrity father, with her young son in tow? How does it feels like for Bongsun, treated as invisible by every one in the world? What kind of complex a strong, strong girl like Bongsoon has towards relationship with boys? She becomes them. She talks to them, she asks them questions and answers as themselves. That’s why people where touched whenever she cries or smiles on the screen.

Seo Inguk never, ever think he was good looking. At least not enough to be a main lead in a romantic drama. Isn’t he just a large Psyduck who even reeks of Gyungsang–do accent no matter how hard he try to speak the Seoul dialect. But when he received a story, he got curious. Can I really become someone else? He practices, he asks around, he researches what kind of a person his characters seem like in the writer, director and even other characters’ eyes. He has never received proper training, he just hustled through it. Be it singing or acting. He even wonders how the hell he got this far without being traditionally trained.

Park Boyoung was afraid of being typecast. Her physique and image didn’t allow for a sexy or fierce roles. She was well aware of this. But she was repeatedly casted for that particular reason too. She’s often irreplaceable in her roles. Unexpectedly, she got to play tough girls that contrast her image comically. But not melodrama yet. She’s yet to fall into that passionate and painful experience called love everyone and their makjang writers have been talking about. She wonders if she’ll ever be able to play that kind of role if it goes on like this. She can act, but it doesn’t change the fact that it would take such imagination power to conjure up the pain she has never experience.

Seo Inguk was never afraid of diving head first to anything at all, including love. He has always works hard on relationships and has been through enough heartbreaks to feel comfortable that whatever future holds, he’ll get out of it just fine eventually. But he has his own string of traumas, and being closely observed then criticised due to the nature of his career adds to his stress. He took a three–year hiatus and disappeared from the limelight. And it was truly hard for a while. But one day he just woke up and realised the world hasn’t end, the sun still rises and life goes on. There is still hope, and more roles to tackle, more songs to sing, more people who apparently remembers of him fondly and willing to offer him work.

Park Boyoung stayed at home a lot lately, with her long overdue rest period, her cute nephew and the calm happiness that comes from spending time with family, she’s well rested and ready to take on things again, that’s when she accepted Abyss.

Seo Inguk started to clean his home regularly. He folds his clothes Kondo Marie’s way, the way his mom had taught even before it became popular. He’s now a proud owner of a respectable clean, stylish apartment. He started to make music again. One breezy night, he was asked for a cameo from Yoo Jewon. His Martin Scorsese if he was ever Di Caprio. Or was Park Boyoung his Di Caprio, he wouldn’t know.

He also wouldn’t know that the completely different kind of little stars are about to cross paths in the near future.