Cannot remove spacing in table cell

Question

The space above and below the text "Big" is still there. This is the html. I'm using Chrome:

<table border="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
  <tr>
    <td style="border-collapse: collapse; padding:0;background-color:red; font-family: calibri light; font-size:70px; vertical-align: top; padding:0px !important;">
      BIG
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td style="padding-left:5px; font-family: calibri; font-size:20px; float: left; ">
      Small text
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>

I don't want to use line-height because then I have to make sure that both the td and its contents have the right height. If not, this happens. This is the reason I'm not using divs:

<table>
<tr>
            <td style="line-height:30px;border-collapse: collapse; padding:0;background-color:red; font-family: calibri light; font-size:70px; vertical-align: top; padding:0px !important;">
                text
            </td>
</tr>
</table>

Answer 1

It's not a padding thing it's just the font you are using. The space you see it's to handle characters that need more space.