Chapter 149: Backing Away
Right before filming started, Director Baek Junbong came to find me.
“Sunho, I have absolutely no doubt you’ll do well. But if, by any chance, you get too nervous or the pressure feels heavy, tell me anytime. I can give you as much time as you need.”
It meant he was being considerate, but filming wouldn’t stop.
Of course.
Even at a glance, the money and time poured into this set looked enormous.
If an actor got scared here and delayed filming, that would be an unbelievable nuisance—something that couldn’t happen.
And I didn’t have the slightest intention of running away because of pressure.
If anything, I was looking forward to seeing how my acting would be captured inside that mirror set.
【Acting — Detailed Stats】
Emotional Expression: S
Line Delivery: A
Physical Acting: S
I’d spent some time thinking about how to use the S-Rank Rank-Up Ticket I got.
I was in a position where I could raise either Looks or Physical Acting to S-rank.
After deliberating, the conclusion I reached was this.
Think in line with the goal.
What did I need more for the goal of “being recognized as the best actor in Korea”?
The answer came quickly.
Physical Acting.
Right now, with Director Baek Junbong’s work, we were aiming for Cannes. And we were staring at the most important ending.
According to the Peak-End Rule, the ending mattered even more.
It was a psychological principle that when people evaluated an experience, they judged the whole based on the strongest moment (Peak) and the final moment (End).
In film terms, it meant the ending had a decisive impact on how the entire movie was evaluated.
So if I wanted to drive a powerful impact into the audience’s brain at the ending, raising Physical Acting was the right call.
“Doctor Princess” was in the center of attention after recording legendary ratings.
I didn’t know when I would get another chance like this—this much attention.
I had to ride that momentum and seize a Cannes win with the film to burn it into people’s minds for good.
That Ryu Sunho was an actor who truly acted well.
So without hesitation, I used all five stat points and the S-Rank Rank-Up Ticket.
After raising Physical Acting to S-rank, the results when I tested it in the practice room were overwhelming.
I was surprised myself.
I can move and control even this part?
So of course, I was overflowing with confidence for today’s shoot.
After giving Director Baek Junbong a firm answer, I went over what we would film today one more time.
A crack formed in Gu Sunwoo’s perfect murder.
And Detective Seon Minho, who noticed the crack, slowly closed the distance.
The closer Seon Minho got, the sharper Gu Sunwoo’s nerves became.
From that moment, Gu Sunwoo’s perfect stage began to shake little by little.
His expressions became overly exaggerated under pressure, and his gestures started creaking with anxiety.
The audience watching Gu Sunwoo’s pantomime gradually changed their expressions, from admiration to disappointment.
Gu Sunwoo’s face began to change too.
On stage, he still maintained a smile, but the moment he stepped off the stage, that smile stiffened into something grotesque.
As the night deepened, Gu Sunwoo’s thoughts converged on one point.
Because of that detective.
And he fired a warning.
To Seon Minho’s parents—who were also Gu Sunwoo’s devoted fans.
In the end, he killed Seon Minho’s parents.
Gu Sunwoo stroked their cooling faces with his fingertips and whispered, “Your son will feel pure emotion now too. An emotion called sorrow—so beautiful.”
Only after losing his parents did Seon Minho learn the whole truth.
With anger and justice mixed together, he didn’t dream of a simple arrest—he prepared a trap for desperate revenge.
Gu Sunwoo’s end, flailing in that trap.
That was the “mirror scene” we were filming today.
“C-cam! It’s in the frame! Further back, further back!”
“Lighting! We’re getting reflected glare off the mirrors! Tilt the angle just a little more!”
Before we went into the main shoot, tight tension filled the set.
“Everyone focus! Treat it like you die if we get an NG!”
The assistant director shouted.
It made sense.
In this space where everything was mirrors, the filming difficulty was hellish.
They mounted cameras in blind spots that wouldn’t reflect in the mirrors, and checked the angles dozens of times so no staff would accidentally appear.
Of course, it was hard for the actor too.
If my blocking was off by even a little, it would be an NG, so we had to breathe through it in a flow that was practically one-take.
So we prepared a rehearsal before the real take.
Behind the monitor station, a stage director and a contemporary dancer who had advised Ryu Sunho for this performance were standing.
“I’m worried. The direction the director asked for is so abstract.”
“I know. Ryu Sunho has good athletic sense, but capturing that grotesque nuance is not something even specialists can express easily…”
Under their worried gaze, Director Baek Junbong called for Ryu Sunho.
“Sunho, let’s do a rehearsal. Check your blocking, loosen your body.”
Ryu Sunho stood at the center of the countless mirrors.
He closed his eyes and regulated his breathing for a moment.
“Hoo…”
The moment he opened his eyes again, the strength drained from his body with a dull drop.
No—though it looked like the strength drained, in reality, every muscle tightened under control.
Sluuide—
The two experts watching snapped their eyes open.
“…Huh?”
Ryu Sunho’s movement was strange.
The rhythm of his upper and lower body was minutely out of sync.
Like a marionette whose one string had snapped.
His joints looked like they were moving independently, yet overall, he maintained an incredible balance.
“Is he… using isolation right now?”
“You taught him that much?”
“Rather than teaching… I showed it. Just as a demonstration.”
Even as the contemporary dancer muttered, Ryu Sunho’s neck, shoulders, chest, and pelvis were each moving independently.
A high-difficulty technique that only pro dancers could pull off was being integrated naturally into acting.
“No, is that a movement you can do in a short time?”
“…Normally, it’s impossible.”
Ryu Sunho’s movement was beautiful, but at the same time, unpleasant.
A sense of alienness, like it was stepping just barely outside the human category.
He was perfectly visualizing the collapse inside the character Gu Sunwoo through bodily motion.
“My god… how much did he practice…”
“Practice is practice, but… at that level, the only thing you can say is his talent is insane.”
Even among the staff, exclamations burst out.
“Wow… I’ve got chills.”
“It’s like I’m watching CG with my own eyes.”
“So that’s why the director insisted on building a real set…”
“It feels like the reflections are all moving differently…”
While the set buzzed in shock and awe, Director Baek Junbong couldn’t take his eyes off Ryu Sunho.
This was absurd.
Thirty years of directing.
He had met countless actors and captured countless masterpieces.
But he’d never been shocked like this.
How could someone keep improving the more shoots he did?
Usually, by the end of filming, actors were exhausted.
Stamina hit the floor, emotions got consumed, and they easily fell into mannerism.
But… why was Ryu Sunho—
Why was his energy now far more overwhelming than at the first shoot?
He answered the foolish question quickly.
He must have practiced and worked like a madman.
Even with a murderous schedule, filming the drama in parallel, how fiercely he had sharpened himself for this film’s ending.
That desperate sincerity pierced through the monitor.
An actor ground down his soul for this.
As the director, I cannot handle it carelessly.
Something hot surged up in his chest.
It became the thought that he had to edit it perfectly and present it to the public without wasting a single frame of that overwhelming product of effort.
Only that would repay the actor’s devotion.
Director Baek Junbong sprang to his feet and grabbed the megaphone.
“Sunho! That’s enough! Perfect!”
Stop.
Ryu Sunho finished the movement and stood still.
“There’s nothing to fix. Blocking, breathing, tempo—perfect. Let’s go with this exact feeling!”
Director Baek Junbong’s voice rang out like thunder.
Deep trust in Ryu Sunho lay underneath that voice.
Director Baek Junbong looked around and said, “Now we just have to do our part! Lighting, camera, audio! No mistakes are allowed! Everyone, pour your soul into capturing everything Actor Ryu is doing exactly as it is on film!”
“Yes!!!”
The staff’s reply was louder than ever.
After seeing that rehearsal, worry about actor mistakes vanished from everyone’s mind.
At the same time, certainty that they would get the best scene heated the set to a boil.
“We’re ready!”
After all the resets were complete, Director Baek Junbong stared at the monitor and shouted with an excited expression.
“Then let’s go for the real take! Stand by… action!”
Seon Minho didn’t want an arrest.
He wanted Gu Sunwoo’s collapse.
He wanted to witness, with his own eyes, the moment that contradictory existence called Gu Sunwoo took off his mask and crumbled.
So he built a trap.
Its name was the Gu Sunwoo Archive.
An era that lost words.
A space under the pretext of recording the trajectory of an actor who revived emotions.
A kind of tribute exhibition that captured every expression and movement of Gu Sunwoo.
The entire wall surface was covered in mirrors.
There was no music, no explanation.
It was a place designed so only one existence would reflect infinitely.
[Your face is the language of this era.]
Only that one line was written on the invitation.
Gu Sunwoo read it and smiled.
A space where he could infinitely duplicate and savor his own expressions and gestures.
There was no way he wouldn’t welcome it.
Click—click—
Gu Sunwoo’s stride was as constant as if measured with a ruler, and his center of gravity was perfectly controlled without a hint of wobble.
Like someone less affected by gravity.
His movements were unrealistically elegant and fluid.
Mirrors on all sides reflected him at the same time.
Dozens, hundreds of Gu Sunwoos.
Each at slightly different angles, different heights, different light.
With his shoulders spread and his chin slightly raised, he stopped mid-step.
Slowing the speed of his inhale deliberately, he searched for the angle where his face looked most beautiful.
And he smiled.
The very expression people praised.
He was satisfied.
But then.
One mirror made a faint static crackle and slipped out of alignment.
Looking closer, it wasn’t a mirror, but a smart mirror screen.
In it, not Gu Sunwoo’s face, but another face appeared.
Yoon Musang.
And then the faces of other victims appeared in turn.
All of them wore expressions mixed with fear and pain.
Gu Sunwoo’s pupils shook.
But it was only for an instant.
He immediately loosened his shoulders and steadied his scattered breathing.
Sorrow. Mourning. Compassion.
Emotions he had practiced countless times.
Gu Sunwoo knew which muscle to contract first to look like sorrow.
He moved his facial muscles like carving sculpture.
The timing to narrow the brow, the speed of the eyelids trembling, even the angle of curling his shoulders inward.
He acted it perfectly.
And like a lie, the faces in the mirror vanished, and his own reflection returned.
Gu Sunwoo nodded unconsciously.
As if to say, of course I’m right.
But the next moment, he met his own face reflected in the front mirror, and froze.
It wasn’t the face he intended.
The mouth corners of what he believed was sorrow were grotesquely lifted.
The gaze he believed was mourning contained chilling ecstasy inside dilated pupils.
Unable even to blink, he stared at the unfamiliar monster in the mirror.
“……”
For the first time, he saw it.
His own face when facing murder.
The face he believed was acting beauty was an ugly demon soaked in pleasure.
…Hngh.
Gu Sunwoo’s breathing collapsed.
It wasn’t simply that he was breathing fast.
His ribs grotesquely swelled and fell in repetition.
His throat bobbed like it might burst out.
Ghk.
Emotions he had suppressed surged back up with stomach acid.
Fear. Rage.
And shame.
His lips trembled.
No sound came out, but his whole body was saying it.
This isn’t me.
He shook his head and backed away.
But no matter where he went, that face was there.
Torn, twisted expressions stared at him from every direction.
The expression he had believed was so noble turned into a blade and stabbed him.
Only then did he realize that his “noble salvation” was, in truth, a chain of murders linked to narcissism and pleasure.
Gu Sunwoo began to move.
It was no longer acting.
It was the runaway of a body outside control.
It created a chilling sensation, like a marionette with snapped strings dancing by itself.
His waist bent backward like a bow, then instantly pitched forward.
His staggering legs looked like dancing, or like writhing under torture.
Each gesture was grotesque, yet too beautiful to look away from.
At that moment, the wall mirrors turned transparent.
…!
There was an audience there.
Countless audience members, thinking all of this was a planned performance, watched with eyes full of emotion.