The Old Man's Role Expands
Script revisions forced by fan protests, and a fight over the rice bowl—battling for screen time—over the romance arc.
Most of my scenes took place in the park, so I rarely shot alongside the other actors, but if I hadn't, the set would surely have been in an uproar over all this.
Especially SD and Jo Yooshin—they practically staged a public protest, didn't they?
The three lead actors were already clawing at each other's screen time, so if Jo Yooshin swallowed the romance arc on top of that, it wouldn't exactly sit well with Rion either.
Having your scenes slashed because of fans would be bad enough, but now another male actor was coming to take what was left?
Wouldn't it be strange if the atmosphere wasn't frosty?
And the trouble didn't end there, either.
SD had gone so far as to protest at the corporate level, only for the writer and the PD to steamroll right over them and toss the whole thing out. Of course Jo Yooshin's side would be seething.
And if my scenes ended up filling the vacuum they'd left behind, it was only natural that some of that resentment would spill over onto me.
Disguised as a veteran actor as I was now, they couldn't show a flicker of it—but once my identity came out, well. That would be another matter.
Not that I had any intention of giving up a golden opportunity over something so trivial, but I'd have to keep it in mind all the same.
"Still, SD really crossed the line this time."
"I know. And what about Baek Si-woo in all this?"
"Sure, investors hold the power, but once filming's started, they should've held their tongues. Offering an opinion is one thing, but pushing it all the way to the end after being told no..."
"Exactly. That's what made it a problem."
SD, huh.
These people were rotten from the very first thought.
Yes, in this industry, a major agency flush with investors and A-list artists holds all the cards—but only right up until the cameras start rolling.
The moment a production begins, the PD and the writer are the ones in charge. That's simply how it works.
Once a project is underway, no one—neither actors nor investment money—can walk out. The contracts are written that way, and even if they weren't, an agency that threw that kind of tantrum wouldn't survive, major label or not.
And yet they'd tried to expand their actor's role while provoking both the PD and the writer simultaneously.
Whether Jo Yooshin was an idiot or SD had lost its mind, this was such a self-destructive blunder I couldn't begin to guess which.
Is this how the big agencies normally do business?
I'd been planning to prioritize major agencies when scouting out a company, but I suppose I'll need to look into what kind of place they actually are before deciding anything.
Even if Writer Min had handed the romance arc over to Jo Yooshin, it likely wouldn't have ended well regardless.
What could you possibly expect from an actor who'd already burned both the PD and the writer?
I have no idea what possessed him to pull such a stunt, but one thing had become crystal clear from the start: exactly which people I needed to steer clear of.
Not that it meant much, since they'd no doubt be just as hostile toward me.
"By the way, was my footage getting cut from episode four also because of the romance?"
"Yes, honestly, it was. We were racking our brains over how to fill the suddenly empty screen time, and one of the options was Elder Yoon—so we asked you to hold off for a bit."
"But there are plenty of proven, established supporting actors out there. Why me?"
"Because visually, Elder Yoon is the best of the bunch. After episode one aired, the reaction on the community boards was great, too. Looks like I made the right call, doesn't it?"
So that was it. All this time I'd wondered why my shoot was suddenly suspended, and they'd already been agonizing over this exact problem.
I was one of the candidates, and since expanding my scenes would require some early build-up, that's why the script was under revision.
My scenes consisted of comforting Yoon Seo-eun in the park and the late reveal of our blood relation—so what on earth had they added?
"Well then, take a look at the script first."
"Ah, yes, of course."
Right on cue, Writer Min handed me my script.
Elder Yoon's scenes from episode five onward.
They hadn't touched the other actors' screen time much, judging by how few of their pages had been revised.
My addition to a handful of scenes only slightly shifted the flow of things, after all.
Until now, Elder Yoon had been a character kept one step removed from the main stage.
But with my screen time growing, the scenes he shared with other actors would inevitably expand as well.
He couldn't run a one-man show forever, after all.
That said, my additions were confined to specific moments, so the other actors didn't suffer much for it.
If a few extra lines of dialogue in the middle of a scene were enough to complain about, you might as well hand in your actor's card.
"Hmm, though this one... well..."
"What? Don't you like it?"
"No, it's not that... it's just, the character's changed quite a bit, hasn't he?"
"His position has changed. From someone who merely watches over her to a helper who moves on her behalf."
"Ah..."
"You can manage it, right? This kind of acting. I'm counting entirely on you, Si-woo—it'd be a real problem if you told me no."
"That... well. Yes, I understand."
Apparently, the helper role in this drama had originally belonged to Rion.
Drama or not, a lowly rank-and-file employee couldn't very well control an entire company, could he?
So they'd built in the setup that Rion was secretly part of the founding family, and the romance between the two leads had been prepared within that same framework.
An utterly predictable setup—but Cinderella stories are the kind of reliable comfort food that still works every time.
In the end, Writer Min's original plan had been for Rion to handle the external problems and the romance, while Elder Yoon supported the internal ones.
But as circumstances shifted, Elder Yoon's role—once confined to the internal struggles—had expanded, evolving into someone who acted directly to support Yoon Seo-eun.
And with the character now locked in, the settings that had lain dormant in the background began to dance.
There were numerous scenes with an emotional depth so intense I wondered if they could really be entrusted to a rookie actor fresh out of debut.
Trusting me is flattering, but this feels like trusting me a little too much?
I had no reason to refuse, but I couldn't shake the feeling that this was, once again, sheer high-handedness on their part.
"Good. Then tomorrow we start with Elder Yoon's episode five material, so come prepared."
"Yes, understood, Writer-nim."
Watching Writer Min fire herself up, it seemed she planned to pile even more screen time onto Elder Yoon depending on how popular he became.
Probably her way of getting back at SD for rubbing her the wrong way?
She clearly figured that giving the extra scenes to me was far better than handing them to Jo Yooshin's side.
If this kept up, my identity reveal would likely come sooner than scheduled.
PD Yoo had a sharp instinct for opportunity—he'd never let a chance like this slip by.
Whatever the case, the fact remained that a great opportunity had found me on my very first project.
The very next day.
The set was in full swing with Elder Yoon's scenes.
Team A—the crew PD Yoo personally oversaw—had swarmed over to my side of the production, which told me everything about how seriously both the writer and the director were taking today's shoot.
Ordinarily, everything except my episode one footage had been shot by Team B.
"Alright, rolling in. Scene 5-2-6."
Elder Yoon's study, furnished with stately antiques.
The old man leaned back against a pricey leather sofa, eyes closed, his expression grave.
A moment later the study door opened, and a woman in her thirties—his secretary, by the look of her—approached with careful steps.
"Sir."
"Yes, Secretary Kim. Did you find it?"
"Yes, here..."
Taking the documents Secretary Kim held out so gingerly, Elder Yoon fumbled open the sealed envelope with trembling hands.
Then he rushed to confirm its contents.
"...So the child is my own flesh and blood."
"It appears she is indeed your granddaughter, sir."
"Ah. So that's how it was. That child, really..."
He'd met the girl at the park his daughter had once cherished most, and something about her had lodged in his eye, refusing to let go—until at last he'd put people on her trail.
And in her room, they'd discovered the abundant traces his daughter had left behind.
Especially the family photograph resting at the center of the room, with its image of a happy mother and daughter—it was the decisive proof that the girl was his own granddaughter.
"She lived in America."
"Yes, sir."
"Overseas. I see. I never even considered it."
Elder Yoon slowly pored over the dossier detailing how his daughter and granddaughter had lived.
Lamenting all the while—how a child who couldn't speak a word of any foreign language had survived so far from home, and just how deeply she must have resented him to have gone to such lengths.
Then, reading the final section—the record of Yoon Seo-eun's present circumstances—his face began to crumple bit by bit.
"That child..."
"Sir?"
"...She's being disrespected? My granddaughter—Yoon Seo-chun's granddaughter? At some piddling little ad agency. How dare... how dare they..."
Into those eyes that had trembled so plaintively with regret and remorse, a furious blaze began to boil up.
No wonder she'd seemed to be struggling every time we met. So that's what had been happening.
As the rage swelled across Elder Yoon's face, cold sweat began to bead on the bowed face of Secretary Kim as well.
Secretary Kim knew far too well just how ruthless a man Elder Yoon truly was—she couldn't even bring herself to meet his eyes.
"..."
"Secretary Kim."
"Y-yes, sir."
"Why are you trembling? What did you do wrong?"
"N-nothing, sir."
Barely composing himself, Elder Yoon addressed his secretary once more in his usual tone.
But Secretary Kim still could not bring herself to look at him.
"Perfect. OK! Wonderful take, Teacher."
It was a scene with some wild emotional swings.
They'd clearly inserted it to hammer home that Elder Yoon was not, in fact, a man to be trifled with, but to my eye it felt a touch over the top.
Seriously, though.
How does one human being make another quake in his boots through sheer force of presence alone?
Granted, I'd given it my all, but had it actually landed properly?
That Writer Min—she wasn't even holding a dual comeback of writing and producing, yet she demands the most outrageous things.
"Heh heh, you think so? What a relief. It's all thanks to actress Kim Ju-yeon holding the scene down for me."
"Not at all, Teacher. I learned so much."
Honestly, on this part I'd owed a real debt to senior actress Kim Ju-yeon's tour-de-force as Secretary Kim.
Having spent some eight years in theater, Kim Ju-yeon was one of the actors newly brought on board as Elder Yoon's part expanded—and her acting chops had exceeded my expectations.
Good grief. She squeezed out actual cold sweat on cue.
Trembling I could understand, but genuinely breaking out in a sweat? I hadn't seen that coming.
Even I would struggle to direct a moment like that without some serious internal energy. Should I learn that trick sometime, too?
Thanks to her, my own performance had come across that much more vividly, and the PD had seemed satisfied enough to call the OK.
Still... it was acting, right?
Then why is her face still drained bone-white, like someone who'd eaten something spoiled?
Did her method acting perhaps go a little too far?
Something seemed off, but for now I resolved to focus solely on my own performance.
My own nose was three inches from my face, as the saying goes—I had no spare attention for anyone else.
"Will you be all right, though? It's a very different register from the Elder Yoon we've seen so far."
"Writer Min says she'll keep pulling scenes like this going forward. All you need to do, Teacher Baek, is exactly what you've been doing. Soft with Seo-eun. Charismatic with everyone else."
"Oh, I see. Understood."
"Also, the momentum's picking up, so we're going to quietly begin that. Don't be too surprised."
"Indeed... I'll keep that in mind."
Even on paper, the script had its share of scenes that leapt around emotionally.
That's why I'd asked the PD again, and he'd told me to simply keep doing what I was doing.
When it came to screen acting, that man was the more seasoned expert—I could trust him, couldn't I?
And then there was that last remark of his.
That was unmistakably a promise that the tabloids would soon blow my identity wide open.
Elder Yoon's buzz was climbing by the day, so it seemed he intended to gun the engine and detonate the story sooner rather than later.
Which suited me fine.
I couldn't spend the rest of my life playing a man in his seventies, could I?
I still had an agency to find and plenty of work to do.
For the first time, things were finally starting to move.