The First Applicant Is a Senior Citizen
Bringing the character to life exactly as I'd envisioned took a little time.
It wasn't that I lacked experience playing similar roles — it was the gap between Murim and the modern world that needed thinking through, and reconciling the two took some fine-tuning.
Along the way, the performance of the actor who'd originally played this role proved surprisingly useful.
He was a famous actor, still working steadily today, and having played roles similar to this one more than once, he made for a rather decent reference.
And so time passed, and the promised day arrived.
When I reached my destination — Conference Room 3 at the SBC broadcasting station — a scattering of people who looked like aspiring actors caught my eye.
Presumably the ones taking part in PD Yoo's secret audition today.
The moment their eyes met mine, they all began tilting their heads in confusion. It was quite entertaining to watch.
Well, fair enough. After all, my current appearance was...
"It's time."
It was 12:55.
A little early, but more than safe enough by any standard.
PD Yoo was the type to stand by waiting without so much as a bite to eat while running his secret auditions, so even arriving now, I should be able to get my turn.
I walked right up, opened the door of the conference room, and stepped inside.
***(Min Woohee)
Conference Room 3, SBC Broadcasting Station.
PD Yoo Myungwoo and Writer Min Woohee, along with the assistant directors and the cinematographer, had all gathered here in a tight little cluster.
They were serving as the judges for today's audition.
"Do we really have to do this?"
For Writer Min, who had already worked on three productions with Yoo Myungwoo, this kind of audition was thoroughly familiar.
It felt like a yearly ritual they passed through every time a new drama went into production.
Still, being dragged out here at the height of her busiest season — she couldn't help thinking PD Yoo had gone too far this time.
In the past, at least there had been a specific role that required casting. This time, there wasn't even that.
It struck her as a genuine waste of time, and she couldn't stop herself from saying as much.
"Why not?"
"Because the second you put out a casting call, actors come running. Why go to all this trouble?"
"Because there might be great actors out there we don't know about. Who knows? And besides..."
"Another Nam Yeonho might walk through that door?"
"Exactly. Finding a hidden gem is a pretty fun way to spend a day, don't you think?"
"Ugh. There's no way lightning strikes twice. That was a miracle, and you know it."
The only reason PD Yoo's antics — outrageous without quite being outrageous — held any sway at all was that he had one proven success under his belt.
Three years ago, on her very first collaboration with him after leaving her debut writing credit behind, Writer Min had watched him uncover the impossibly big catch known as Nam Yeonho at an unpublicized audition — and Nam Yeonho, cast in a substantial supporting role, had carried the drama on his back straight to success.
Nam Yeonho was now one of the most recognized actors in Korea, so it wouldn't be far wrong to call him the greatest output of these secret auditions.
With a success story already on record, Writer Min kept getting roped into serving as a judge whenever PD Yoo held one of these things.
Granted, Nam Yeonho remained the sole success case — but it wasn't as if the auditions had been outright failures either, so on this point even Writer Min had no real argument.
"Writer Min, just let it go. Our PD has caught the masterpiece complex again. There's no cure for that disease."
"Hey, how is this a masterpiece complex?"
"You ignore perfectly good established actors and insist on digging up rookies instead. That's the textbook definition."
"Tsk, tsk. Hidden gems can exist at any moment, my friend."
"Save your dreams for when you're home alone."
Watching PD Yoo bristle at the assistant director's jab about his masterpiece complex drew an involuntary snort of laughter out of her.
He did seem to have at least accepted that he suffered from the condition.
Feeling a little lighter after seeing him so flustered, Writer Min decided to simply relax.
The script was mostly finished, the direction was already set — she would just empty her head for a day. That was all.
"So how many are we expecting this time?"
"Honestly, no idea. I do hand out my cards rather freely, you know. Enough should show up. They've probably all gathered by now, and whichever one of them has the most guts will come in first."
"You could have at least collected profiles, don't you think?"
"Oh, come on. What would I do with those? This is an audition that judges nothing but the acting. Once it looks like everyone's here, we can just wrap it up."
"As always, you're completely unprepared."
He really is hopeless with people, she thought, and resigned herself to waiting — trusting, as PD Yoo had said, that someone brave enough would be the first to walk through that door.
And then—
The door opened, and someone entered the room.
"...Huh?"
"...So, you're here for the audition, I pre—"
"A pleasure to meet you. Aspiring actor Baek Si-woo, at your service."
"Ah. Yes, of course..."
Every person preparing for the auditions went speechless.
Because the very first aspiring actor to find the conference room was an elderly man who looked to be somewhere in his seventies.
Age is no barrier in drama casting, true — but never before had a gentleman of that vintage shown up at an audition like this one.
Elderly roles were almost always filled by veteran actors, and the standard practice was for those veterans to join a production directly, without auditioning at all.
"Er... so, Mr. Baek Si-woo?"
"Yes, PD-nim."
"You're here with the Elder Yoon role in mind, I take it?"
"That's correct. Though I have many shortcomings, I've come here for the role of Elder Yoon."
It was a first for everyone, and PD Yoo seemed briefly thrown off balance — but he quickly collected himself and started the audition.
Meanwhile, Writer Min, following the exchange, remembered that exactly one role remained in this drama suited to a gentleman of that age.
Elder Yoon.
It was a role that had yet to find its owner, simply because there was so much to consider around it.
"Come to think of it... he does have rather a similar feel to Elder Yoon..."
Perhaps it was the age, but his hair had gone fully white and lines had settled into his face — yet his features were so refined that this gentleman must have broken quite a few hearts in his youth.
His dignified bearing and courteous manner paired beautifully with the modified hanbok he'd worn today.
Considering that Elder Yoon's costume was specified as a modified hanbok in every scene, the synchronicity was impressive.
And above all — his voice, and his eyes.
That low, warm yet unshakably firm tone matched the Elder Yoon she had imagined so closely that her head was nodding along all on its own. It was, unavoidably, a perfect match.
"No. No, no. First we watch him act. Actually — would watching him perform this script even mean anything?"
She shook her head, struggling to rein in a mind that wanted to surrender completely.
Elder Yoon was no simple role.
True, his entire introduction in the first-episode script consisted of a brief conversation — but the role carried more weight than it appeared.
There was a twist lurking in it, hidden settings stacked beneath the surface, and pulling off the whole thing was far beyond the reach of ordinary acting skill.
That was why she had kept sending love calls to Seo Jin-seop, the veteran actor famous as a craftsman of the craft.
And besides, performing with nothing but the first-episode script in hand, it would be impossible to deliver the Elder Yoon she truly wanted.
"Let's begin with the acting, then. In the first-episode script, the proper Elder Yoon scene is—"
"Scene 22-3-2."
"Just the one? Will this even be meaningful? Well — let's see it anyway."
Just as PD Yoo instructed, Mr. Baek Si-woo began to perform.
"Is it wearing on you?"
"It is. Dealing with people is never easy. I confess I find it the same."
"At my age, it still isn't simple."
"But you're far better off than I was, my girl. At your age, I didn't even know that people were hard to deal with."
"So in time... I believe you'll become a far better adult than I ever was."
"...Wait. What? Why is he good? No — how on earth is he such a perfect fit for Elder Yoon?"
Honestly, she'd been prepared to concede that the acting itself might be decently solid.
Someone who showed up at a drama audition at that age had to have something going for him.
But understanding a role perfectly was a different matter entirely.
It should have been impossible to fully grasp the character of Elder Yoon from the first-episode script alone.
None of the hidden settings had been disclosed — how was anyone supposed to understand them?
And yet the actor before her was performing as though he knew some secret the rest of them didn't.
Otherwise there was no way he could have taken a script that contained nothing but the stage direction (warmly, as if offering comfort) and delivered it with eyes so wistful — as though recalling something he had once bid farewell to long ago.
"Excuse me — one moment. So, Mr. Baek Si-woo?"
"Yes, Writer-nim."
"Why on earth did you play that scene that way?"
Startled by an acting choice that leapt straight out of her own imagination, Writer Min had cut the audition short — and now she couldn't help asking why he'd played it like that.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, the script clearly says only 'warmly, as if offering comfort.' But your performance felt like..."
"As if there were a hidden story beneath it?"
"Yes. Exactly that."
"Well, that would be because the character has a hidden story, wouldn't it."
"So you're telling me you deduced that from this script alone?"
"Heheh. Whether 'deduced' is quite the word for it..."
After a hearty chuckle, Baek Si-woo began to lay out his reasoning, step by careful step — all while gazing steadily at Writer Min.
"I am, personally, a great admirer of your work, Writer Min Woohee. I've made a habit of watching everything you write."
"Oh my, thank y—"
"Writer Min."
"Ah — no, that's not what I meant. I mean... go on?"
Good grief. What is with this man's eyes?
Is this... what acting craft looks like?
Chiding herself for the little flutter her heart had given under the gaze of a man in his seventies, she forced herself to focus and listened closely.
"You never introduce a character without meaning behind them, Writer-nim. Most writers are that way, of course, but you're especially rigorous about it."
"Well... that's true."
"And yet this Elder Yoon has nothing at all. Apart from comforting the protagonist in a park, nothing about him is revealed."
"Right."
"But he comes with a suspicious abundance of detail. His costume is pinned down as a modified hanbok, and his emotional direction is unusually dense. For a bit part with one or two appearances, that simply wouldn't happen."
"Hmm..."
"So I got to thinking — and as it happens, the protagonist's name is Yoon Seoeun. And this role is Elder Yoon. So I allowed myself the fancy that perhaps there's a hidden blood tie between them."
"Oh, so you—"
"And from the moment the two of them first meet, Elder Yoon's emotions are thrown into visible turmoil. The stage direction only says he pauses briefly and looks at Yoon Seoeun — but isn't that the moment Elder Yoon instinctively realizes it? That Yoon Seoeun is, in truth, his own flesh and blood?"
With a blood tie laid as the foundation, Baek Si-woo explained, the character's whole manner of treating her could not help but change — and Writer Min found herself nodding along before she knew it.
Because his guess had landed strikingly close to the truth.
So that's what decades of accumulated craft looks like, she thought, admiration rising unbidden — and the thought even crossed her mind that it might be all right to entrust this role to him.
"This works. It really works."
PD Yoo, seemingly of the same mind, looked thoroughly satisfied.
No — come to think of it, that man was probably even more satisfied than she was.
Writer Min's job ended the moment the script was written, but PD Yoo still had the unenviable task of somehow landing a veteran actor who kept turning him down.
"By the way, sir — you seem to have acted for a very long time. Exactly how many years of experience do you have?"
Around the time the role seemed all but locked in, PD Yoo asked Baek Si-woo about his acting career.
Truthfully, Writer Min had been curious about the same thing.
Here was a veteran actor whose craft was extraordinary at a glance — and yet she'd never seen his face before.
So there they sat, waiting with curiosity-laden eyes for Baek Si-woo's answer — and Baek Si-woo's entire atmosphere began to shift in the strangest way.
The heavy, composed gravitas he had shown until now vanished into thin air, and even his voice changed.
In other words, it now looked for all the world like a young fellow in a slapdash old-man costume.
"Haha — allow me to introduce myself again. Baek Si-woo, aspiring actor, twenty-three years old."
"...Twenty-three?"
"With that face?"
"Ah, this is a special-effects makeup job."
"Special... effects makeup?"
This is... special effects makeup?
The core of it is a twenty-something?
So everything he's shown us until this moment was all... acting?
"You're really twenty-three?"
"Haha, I am."
A young actor in his twenties had gone to the trouble of prosthetic makeup to audition for a role in his seventies?
And then he'd been good at it, on top of that?
Is this guy... insane?
Apparently, one absolutely unhinged individual had just appeared at today's audition.