Nam Kyung-hee

Growing up

Kyung-hee grew up watching her mother square up printed matter and check it to the last sheet. She was comfortable with her family's way of holding out a marked page rather than explaining a problem loudly. At school she more often took the role of finding what was missing from the materials than of presenting. She often missed the moment in a conversation trying to form an exact sentence, but thought of this only as a strength of character. It was only when her family took her silence as agreement and settled the holiday plans that she truly felt that a preference left unsaid cannot be known by anyone else. Her present calm mixes a gift for observation with a reluctance to offer an opinion that might be wrong.

Why acting

After a video production course she worked in a small post-production studio, organizing files and assisting with sound editing. Reading temporary lines before the actors arrived, she heard how a scene changed with where the breath fell even when a sentence meant the same. At first she thought being someone who chose good takes was enough. But trying to explain why one reaction among many takes felt more alive, she wanted to try it herself in front of a partner. From 2002 she took scene classes while keeping her job, and the hardest thing was that, unlike recorded sound, you cannot edit your partner on set. After playing Su-gyeong in the 2004 short “Listening to the Window Again”, she built experience moving between acting and editing.

Turning points

In “Saturday Ironing” in 2006 she faced Ha Yeon-sook's laundry owner as the new employee. The faster her hands moved to do the job well, the more the relationship in the scene disappeared, so she practised deliberately not hurrying. In the 2011 short “Waiting for Prints” she found the upper hand in a photo-studio clerk who spares her words. But believing silence was a good choice in real work too, in 2015 she answered far too late about whether she could appear in a production. In the end the schedules did not fit, and the team could not secure enough rehearsal time for another actor. Kyung-hee accepted that not wanting to give an unsure answer does not remove the responsibility, and she still spends too long on choices that have no deadline.

Up close

Her husky voice and unhurried answers make her seem sociable and worldly.

After an unfamiliar gathering she needs time alone, and when making plans she considers far too many possibilities. Solving small logic puzzles with people close to her, her competitive streak shows more than usual.

Preparing a scene

Instead of reading the script aloud first, she separates the information the character is hiding from the information she will demand. Next she records the lines and listens for places where her partner can come in. If there are props, she sets no more than two purposeful actions. On set she drops one of them, leaving space to take her partner's real reaction.

She confirms with her partner when to hand over a prop, but does not ask them to follow her rhythm exactly. She offers notes as two choices that can be compared, and waits for the director's decision before adding more. Even through long waits, she does not needlessly strain her throat to produce a low voice.

The texture of the acting

• In a low, unhurried husky middle voice, a brief pause before a word makes the information sound worth more or less.
• She changes the moment she stops a fan or a small object to show the audience a turn in the conversation.
• The smile leaves her eyes first while the smile on her lips stays behind, making the gap between what she means and what she says.

A day off stage

In the morning she opens the window and listens to the silence before and after one practice recording from last week. She makes lunch in a single pot and sits down before the rice goes cold even if she can see more to tidy. In the afternoon she opens a book with pressed leaves in it, writes only the date, and goes on with the novel she was reading. When she calls her older sister in the evening, instead of asking what to eat she tries saying first what she wants to eat.