Chapter 189: Secret Weapon (4)
Chapter 189: Secret Weapon (4)
An audition to verify actor Lee Sang-soo’s skills.
It was called an audition, but in reality, it was nothing more than a simple script reading. Even if Director Baek Min gave a lukewarm reaction, the investors wouldn't just sit idly by.
Thus, from the moment Lee Sang-soo appeared, most of the staff were watching the proceedings with relaxed minds. They thought Seo-yeon had only come to test their chemistry—nothing more.
"Right. It was all a lie."
A low vocalization. The voice flowing out with her breath felt as if she were vomiting out her emotions.
"Everything, from start to finish."
Seo-yeon’s ability to convey emotion had always been excellent, but now, it felt like she had taken a massive leap forward.
Why?
While everyone wondered, Director Baek Min had a faint inkling of the reason.
‘I heard she was on Masked Singer recently.’
Director Baek Min didn't watch variety shows. He hadn't actually seen the broadcast; he had only heard about it. Those who had seen it said they found themselves inadvertently immersed in the emotions flowing through Seo-yeon’s singing.
An actor draws out the audience's emotions through everything they can express. However, a singer draws out those emotions solely through sound.
There is a common saying about a voice having "soul-stirring resonance." Seo-yeon was exactly that case. Just as using one's body frequently makes one accustomed to how to move it, the same applies to the voice.
To learn how to sing and to win the competition on Masked Singer, Seo-yeon had trained her weapon to its limit. She used it to fill the gaps where she lacked compared to others. It was the power to evoke empathy from the audience on stage—the power to win.
That resonance.
In an instant, the people gathered there forgot that this was a mere audition. They forgot they were supposed to be watching a casual script reading and began to watch this "scene" with rapt attention.
"I had a feeling."
Seo-yeon—no, the character Seo-yeon was playing, Kasugayama Yuina—spoke.
"That you were plotting something with that cheeky brat."
Yuina’s gaze turned toward Goto Isamu. Her eyes were filled with vivid hatred. Her red eyes, shining in the darkness, made the surrounding air turn chilly.
"But I believed you. Like a fool, I thought you were doing everything for my sake."
She didn't intend to blame him for that. After all, she had also planned to kill Amanabi Michiko and seize her fortune. And, while she was at it... take that girl as well.
"So it was all a lie."
She had been nothing but a puppet. That fact angered her more than anything, and hatred for Goto Isamu filled her heart.
"The things you said while raising me as a child."
Clenching her fists, she took a step forward.
"Telling me to be happy, even if I had to trample over others."
Yuina clutched her chest with her left hand, as if trying to tear out her own heart.
"So I trampled them all. Until I claimed all of the Kasugayama fortune for myself."
She had placed everyone in the family beneath her feet and made everything her own as the current head of the house.
"Right, you were waiting. For the moment I took it all."
At the very, very end. To kill her at this moment and take everything for himself. Her voice scraped at her emotions like fingernails scratching a chalkboard.
Watching Seo-yeon’s acting, Lee Sang-soo could feel it. Ah, so this is what actor Park Sun-woong was talking about.
She was a young actress. To be honest, he had lived as an actor for over forty years. Lee Sang-soo had started as a child actor and had never lived a life apart from acting. Seo-yeon was exactly half his age.
‘What kind of acting was I doing at that age?’
The thought suddenly occurred to him. In those days, the world of acting was harsh, and there was a lot of discrimination. He had even been hit during his child actor days. The atmosphere wasn't protective of child actors like it was now.
Still, he had worked incredibly hard. But looking at Seo-yeon’s acting, his past self felt utterly insignificant.
Was he jealous? No, it wasn't that. He simply realized something while watching her. He realized what kind of acting he had originally wanted to do.
"I was mistaken at first, too."
Just before auditioning for Gyeongseong Lady, Lee Sang-soo had visited an actress who had appeared in a drama with Seo-yeon when she was a child. They were colleagues who had acted together many times since they were young. Their bond was so long that it spanned almost his entire acting career.
"I assumed she must have been abused."
Actress Jung Eun-seon had said those words with a slightly embarrassed face.
"Those weren't emotions a child should be able to show. And yet, it wasn't acting done with sincerity, either."
Showing emotion without acting from the heart? It was an incomprehensible statement to Lee Sang-soo. At the same time, he understood what Jung Eun-seon meant. It wasn't acting from the heart, yet if she displayed that level of emotion, one couldn't help but harbor doubts and suspicions.
"I couldn't understand it either. Literally, that acting was a result of immense emotional mimicry. I concluded that a child couldn't possibly do that on her own. It was just the stubbornness of a foolish old woman."
At the time, Jung Eun-seon had intended to confront the parents. Seo-yeon’s mother, Sua, had been on set then.
"But when I actually met them, they seemed to have no idea. However, I’ve always been a stubborn woman, so I wanted that child to stop her emotional acting. I was sure it would affect her mental well-being."
When confronted with that criticism, Seo-yeon had met it head-on. More perfectly than ever, she immersed herself in the role, and the emotions that had been mere mimicry became real and reached out to her.
Mimicry. It was originally a term used in painting—to copy something. Seo-yeon’s emotional acting had been like that. Using many colors with extreme delicacy, it was nothing more than a reproduction that captured the emotions she had observed with near-perfection.
But in the end, what Jung Eun-seon saw wasn't a reproduction; it was the real thing. By seeing the real Ju Seo-yeon’s acting, she had no choice but to acknowledge it.
"It sounds ridiculous."
Jung Eun-seon smiled sheepishly as she spoke.
"But I learned a lot. If I hadn't filmed with that child back then, I probably would have quit acting by now. I would have been nothing more than an outdated actress left with nothing but her pride."
Lee Sang-soo couldn't believe Jung Eun-seon’s words. After all, she had been more active than anyone else over the past ten years. She had even appeared in several dramas with Jo Seo-hee, who regarded her as a mentor.
"I know you're agonizing over this, Senior. If so, you'll surely find out."
Passion is like an ember. It can easily cool down, but conversely, it can flare up in an instant given the right spark. It was the same for Jung Eun-seon.
"That child... she has something that stimulates other actors."
So, surely, it would be the same for Lee Sang-soo. Because the Lee Sang-soo looking at her now clearly held that same lingering attachment.
"Keep talking, Isamu."
The Yuina before his eyes spoke.
"Keep talking, Isamu. So, you're going to kill me?"
Step by step, she approached him.
"I will never die."
With a faint, bloody smile on her lips and eyes full of deep hatred, she looked at him.
"Just as you taught me, I will trample everything. I will kill. That is my job, not yours."
The key Isamu held in his hand. It was a memento from her parents. The key that could open the safe containing the symbol of the Kasugayama head. Surely that girl had stolen it and delivered it to him.
That bitch.
She didn't even feel like cursing her. After all, she was the one who had intended to use and kill her first. And for some reason, she didn't feel any hatred. She didn't know why.
"How amusing."
It was then that Goto Isamu opened his mouth toward Yuina.
"Truly amusing words, Yuina. Since what you just said is exactly what I said long ago."
Isamu’s relaxed face contorted—so much so that Yuina, who was about to charge with hatred, momentarily flinched.
"I was the same. I vowed that I would never die. You ridiculous girl. In the end, all you're doing is imitating me."
Isamu’s eyes widened. His eyes seemed to glisten with madness. He looked like a hideous phantom living in the past.
"Kasugayama was supposed to be mine! If your father hadn't stolen everything, it would have all been mine!!"
Yuina’s body trembled at the sound that tore through the space. It wasn't just Yuina. Everyone here on this set, everyone watching him, felt the same.
The atmosphere had changed. That was the only way to describe it.
Until a moment ago, they were watching Lee Sang-soo’s usual acting. Stable, familiar—the kind of acting people expected from him.
But now, something was different. As if the leash holding him back had snapped, he burst forth like a horse that had lost its reins.
"I was a man who should have died. A human who should have vanished. I lost my name. I lost my face. In this hideous form, I survived somehow."
His voice, which had been close to a shout, dropped into a flat murmur. But the words pierced clearly into their ears.
The gazes of those who had just empathized with Seo-yeon’s emotional delivery now turned toward Lee Sang-soo. He didn't have the flash of a genius, but he had experience. He had the years he had lived as an actor.
Even if he had failed in Hollywood, he was an actor who represented South Korea. Yes, his acting had once defined the nation. At some point, that passion had cooled, and after his failure in Hollywood, he felt the time for burning passion had passed.
"Do you think you've become something, Kasugayama Yuina?"
But wasn't it so? Flames ignite this easily.
"You are simply a puppet made in my image. A mere fake, an imitation."
While looking at Yuina, Goto Isamu tucked the key he was holding into his robe and grasped something else.
"Now then."
It was a knife.
"It is time to cut the strings of the doll whose work is done."
Isamu laughed. With his mouth twisted and his eyes wide, just as he took a step forward—
"Cut."
Director Baek Min raised his hand.
The start had been a simple beginning, but the end was a "Cut." It was Director Baek Min’s signal that this scene had reached its conclusion as a piece of drama.
No one questioned his words. No, they didn't even have the presence of mind to question them. No one could find the words to describe the sequence they had just witnessed.
"Actor Lee Sang-soo."
In the heavy silence, Director Baek Min spoke with a broad smile.
"You were incredible."
It was a short sentence, but it was closer to the ultimate praise than anything else. At his words, Lee Sang-soo gave a bitter smile.
"...I didn't want to lose to a young junior. To the point where I forgot my own age."
Lee Sang-soo looked at Seo-yeon. Seo-yeon was looking back at him with startled eyes.
"Director Baek Min."
Lee Sang-soo spoke while looking at her.
"This is a request from an old actor, but I would very much like to act with Ju Seo-yeon this time."
If Director Baek Min hadn't liked Lee Sang-soo’s acting, he probably would have refused. Even if the investors pushed for it later, an actor who didn't sit well with the director would rarely be treated well. In fact, Lee Sang-soo hadn't wanted to do it that way in the first place.
But the moment he saw Seo-yeon’s acting today, his mind changed. He absolutely wanted to work with her.
Previously, Jung Eun-seon had said she desperately wanted to act with Jo Seo-hee, and Lee Sang-soo honestly hadn't understood. But now, he empathized with that feeling a hundred percent.
Seeing Lee Sang-soo’s attitude, the surrounding staff looked at Seo-yeon with shocked eyes.
‘For Lee Sang-soo to go that far...’
‘Seo-yeon’s acting was definitely amazing, too.’
Although Lee Sang-soo’s acting had crowned the end, it was Seo-yeon’s acting that had first drawn them in. But for that Lee Sang-soo—the man once called the national representative actor—to swallow his pride and speak like that... there was no one present who wasn't astonished.
"You're being too much, Mr. Lee."
Director Baek Min replied with a smile. Everyone watched him with tense faces at the strange nuance of his words. Knowing Director Baek Min’s personality, he could very well say that and then reject him with a smile.
"After seeing a performance like that... if I were to turn down someone like you, I might have to step down from the director's chair."
Thwack. Director Baek Min closed the notebook he had been writing in while watching the acting. There was no need to see more.
To be sure, Lee Sang-soo’s acting was different from the Goto Isamu that Director Baek Min had intended to direct. The Goto Isamu he had envisioned was a more petty and despicable character. Instead of provoking Yuina head-on like this, he was supposed to be someone who slowly needled her.
But what did it matter? If this felt better, wasn't that enough?
"And Seo-yeon."
"Yes?"
Director Baek Min burst into laughter at Seo-yeon, who was looking at him with wide eyes. She seemed surprised by Lee Sang-soo’s acting in her own way.
"Please keep that up during the actual filming. It was wonderful."
"Pardon? Oh, yes!"
Seo-yeon bowed her head in response. But she didn't know—she didn't know that Director Baek Min was a director notoriously stingy with praise.
"And regarding Actor Lee Sang-soo, let's keep it hidden as much as possible. At least until the trailer."
"Ah, that sounds good. It'll feel like a secret weapon."
"Secret weapon?"
At a staff member's words, Director Baek Min thought for a moment and then nodded.
"Yes, I like that. A secret weapon."
The great actor who once represented South Korea, Lee Sang-soo. He would undoubtedly be the secret weapon of Gyeongseong Lady.
Director Baek Min was certain of it.