The Making of Elder Yoon
Reading the character sheet Writer Min had sent over for Elder Yoon, I couldn't hold back my laughter.
The hidden whale of the Myeongdong loan shark underworld. A man who wielded considerable influence even in the entertainment industry.
And on top of that, he was apparently in a romantic relationship with a beautiful middle-aged actress.
Seriously? Why on earth would you pile this much backstory onto a character who only shows up in a handful of scenes? Writer Min, you look perfectly normal on the outside — are you secretly a lore otaku?
The one detail I could actually wrap my head around was the estranged only daughter he'd fought with and who'd walked out on him — how he missed her every day and took his daily walks through the little park she'd loved most.
That one, at least, gave the first meeting between the protagonist and Elder Yoon some plausibility.
After all, the protagonist only came to that park because she'd seen it in an old photo her mother had shown her.
Granted, I did wonder just how much he must have despised the man for him to flee abroad and never once contact his father until the day he died — but I suppose that falls under dramatic license.
Considering he was written to die suddenly in a car accident, it tracks well enough.
Elder Yoon was set up as stubborn as a mule, and so was the protagonist, Yoon Seoeun — so her mother must have had the same temperament. Which made it easier to understand why she couldn't bring herself to reach out easily to the father who'd abandoned her.
"Well, none of it will ever make it on screen anyway. Elder Yoon's personal circumstances, I mean."
The main backdrop of this drama was an advertising firm, and Elder Yoon was nothing more than the protagonist's emotional healing point. The spotlight would never swing his way.
Which is to say, the elaborate backstory Writer Min had dreamed up for him would likely never be fleshed out on screen.
Still, even these small details helped quite a bit with shaping the character.
"With a setup like this, I'll need to adjust the face mask a little. Honestly, going full Medicine Immortal mode here seems like the right call."
The mask I'd crafted for the audition had been that of a fairly kindly old man.
But if this gentleman was the hidden kingpin of the loan shark world, his expression would need to shift somewhat.
For this part, following the lead of Yakseon — the single most beautiful elder in all of Murim — seemed like the best approach.
Old man Yakseon normally chuckled away like some benevolent saint, but the moment he let a sliver of sharp authority bleed through, even I got secretly nervous.
Elder Yoon would radiate that same charisma from time to time, so I figured it was a perfect fit.
He still yearns for his daughter. He sees her shadow in Yoon Seoeun. He slowly begins to suspect she isn't his flesh and blood. An elder of considerable social standing. And a loan shark, no less.
With a few clues layered on top, the character shaping was complete.
The written setup had its gaps, sure — but those were mine to fill with imagination.
A man of formidable ability, yet plagued by family strife, unable to see his daughter — or even his granddaughter. Situations like that were common enough in Murim.
And in most such cases, the old man guarded nothing but his own pride, lost his daughter and granddaughter both, and spent the rest of his days drowning in regret.
Using those men as reference, I felt I could play this role with even greater ease.
Around the time I was studying the script and building out my character, the casting for Genius Copywriter, Yoon Seoeun was slowly taking shape.
I remembered that the drama had been a success, and that every actor in it had turned in a strong performance.
But I hadn't remembered who played the lead roles — so with each name that surfaced, another wave of admiration washed over me.
Female lead: Seoeun, the youngest member of the top-tier idol group Ash Bloom, now in their sixth year.
Leading male supporting cast: Rion, leader of the idol group Nuclear, and Jo Yooshin, a next-generation heartthrob actor just two years into his debut.
Every single one a guaranteed hitmaker. The big fish had all been landed.
"Man, this is PD Yoo for you."
Just looking at the actors' names made me realize all over again what a formidable operator this PD was.
The standard playbook says that when two idols are cast in lead-adjacent roles, you'd question whether the director had lost his mind. But those two were cut from an entirely different cloth than your average idol-turned-actor.
Seoeun of Ash Bloom had debuted as an actress before her idol career even began, and had since proven herself a veteran with strong performances across several works. Rion of Nuclear had likewise already had his abilities validated as the lead of a miniseries.
Casting idols who had both name recognition and acting chops paid enormous dividends in the ratings department.
The other supporting lead, Jo Yooshin, was a rising actor whose very first project had been a smash hit — and with a major agency cherishing him as their cash cow, his promotional push would be immense.
My guess is that some of the investors came in through his connection.
If the actor bringing investors to the table was Jo Yooshin, PD Yoo had no reason to refuse the arrangement.
His methods were a bit ridiculous, but by every measure he seemed like a capable PD.
"Ash Bloom, though? Even I remember their names — that's a mega idol group right there. How did he possibly sweet-talk them into this? One world tour earns those girls far more money."
But the most striking casting of all was, without question, Seoeun in the role of Yoon Seoeun.
The woman herself was remarkable enough — what baffled me was how the company had been persuaded at all.
To put it bluntly, at Ash Bloom's level, running one more tour would earn them considerably more than acting ever would.
That's precisely why idols at the very top rarely step into the acting world until their group retires.
Then again, as the name made plain, this role had clearly been written with Ash Bloom's Seoeun in mind from the very start.
My guess was that Writer Min had crafted the character specifically as bait to reel her in.
Unless the love call had been that serious, Ash Bloom — busy preparing a world tour at the height of their fame — would never have gracefully handed over their youngest.
Truly, these people were overflowing with talent.
With casting complete, the official proceedings moved along at a brisk pace.
The script reading, in particular.
Frankly, I'd assumed I wouldn't be attending it.
My first-appearance scenes amounted to little more than exchanging a few lines with Seoeun.
If I went and had my identity discovered for no reason, it would be a disaster — so I'd figured the production side would bar me from it.
I had absolute confidence that I would never get caught, but the rest of the production staff didn't necessarily share that confidence.
And yet PD Yoo insisted, of all things, that I absolutely had to attend the script reading.
Something about how the reading would be recorded on video, so my face had to be there.
What he actually meant was: attend the script reading and fool every single actor present.
A gloriously deranged idea — exactly what you'd expect from PD Yoo, famous for being a few fries short of a happy meal.
"And you know what? It turned out to be secretly hilarious."
So there I was at the script reading, per PD Yoo's request, playing an actor playing a man in his seventies, deceiving the entire cast.
It wasn't even an uncomfortable position to be in.
Deceiving people through acting was what I had always done.
The character PD Yoo had assigned me was a hidden master who'd spent thirty years honing his craft at a small theater troupe — and since every actor reacted differently, performing him was genuinely enjoyable.
First off, the young actors all treated me with the immaculate deference one shows a venerated senior.
Evidently not a single one of them was a hopeless piece of work where character was concerned.
Well, it made sense — lead role or not, any young actor who strutted around stiff-necked in front of a veteran elder wouldn't last long in this industry.
The mid-career actors with a decent stack of credits, however, all wore expressions of doubt.
The Korean acting scene wasn't exactly vast, and nobody could quite believe that a veteran actor of this caliber had materialized out of thin air.
It wasn't that the acting was bad, nor that the looks were lacking — so how could someone that skilled be a complete unknown?
Truthfully, even I thought it was a little strange.
On top of that, I was an eerie figure with no school ties, no credits, not even a single acquaintance among actors — and they clearly had no idea how to categorize me.
If they could anchor me somewhere — a classmate or schoolmate from the acting world, or even just someone who'd shared a project with somebody — they'd have a frame of reference. But with nothing to grab onto, they simply couldn't get their bearings.
And every time one more mid-career actor began treating me with faint awkwardness, PD Yoo had to pinch his thigh to keep from bursting out laughing.
He was entertaining himself, alone, by imagining how all those actors would react once the full truth came out.
I keep telling you — that man has a quietly rotten streak.
Not that I was any less eager for that moment myself, of course.
"Ahh, this is just perfect. Exactly what I pictured."
"You think so? That's a relief."
Writer Min, for her part, was blooming with laughter for a slightly different reason.
Because the face mask I'd revised pleased her down to the ground.
She'd already liked my look at the audition, but this? This was beyond good.
She claimed it was precisely the Elder Yoon she'd imagined — which, considering my chosen model was Yakseon, Murim's foremost flower of an elder, meant this woman had shamelessly extravagant taste.
You're tucking the great Yakseon himself into a supporting role with barely a handful of scenes? Isn't that a touch greedy?
Well, if she was happy with it, I'd simply perform as this.
And so, with the script reading wrapped, filming began almost immediately.
In my case, since my scenes were relatively few, I wasn't thrown straight onto set.
PD Yoo's plan was to have the leads and main supporting cast burn through a portion of their scenes before bringing me in.
The more I hung around set, the more people would start questioning who I was, so my schedule was kept to the bare minimum.
I doubt even the leads get their schedules managed this airtight?
My commute, moreover, was to be conducted at what could only be called espionage level.
I didn't have a car yet, so the assistant director had agreed to take full charge of shuttling me to and from set.
It was out of caution — the worry that using public transit all the way to set might somehow expose my identity.
PD Yoo, this man... he's taking the whole deceiving-people thing way too seriously.
"And so, at long last, I have a job(?) to go to."
A few more days passed, and the day of the first shoot finally arrived.
"Ahh, Siwoo! Looking sharp as ever today, I see."
"Haha, and you're looking particularly dapper yourself, Director Choi."
"Oh, dapper my foot. I'm dead tired is what I am."
"Dead tired, yet here you are piling on more work... honestly."
"Honestly, I prefer this. The other set feels more stifling."
Assistant Director Choi Seokhyun, the man who'd come to pick me up, had worked alongside PD Yoo for years and was famous in this industry as PD Yoo's most loyal man.
His own directorial debut, pushed by PD Yoo, was all but confirmed at this point.
He was also one of the only people on set who knew my secret, meaning he'd be driving me around for the foreseeable future — and thankfully, he didn't seem to have a prickly bone in his body.
Because this was extra work on top of his duties, after all. From an assistant director's perspective, it was more than enough to be annoyed about.
"Oh, right — Siwoo, be careful on set today. The PD's a little on edge."
"Why? Is something wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, exactly. It's just that a cameo actor is coming in. And he's throwing a fit insisting it stay secret right up until broadcast."
"Oh, really? Our PD sure does love his secrets."
"Tell me about it. Our PD really is a strange one."
Chatting away with Assistant Director Choi like this, the cameo came up in conversation.
A cameo, hmm.
Given that PD Yoo intended to keep it under wraps until the very eve of broadcast, the actor was probably quite famous.
But I wouldn't be crossing paths with them.
My filming time was short, after all.
Plus I had barely any points of contact with the other cast, so no situation would ever arise where I'd meet the cameo actor.
A famous actor would keep their schedule to the minute, film their part, and head straight back — that much was certain.
And so, thinking nothing of it, I wiped the cameo entirely from my mind.