Then What About the Audition?
After a thorough wash, I headed to the office beside the gym Gwon Du-il had rented for the time being.
The agency still didn't have a decent location for a building—he was even considering constructing one from scratch—but a good property would come on the market within a few months. I'd have to tip him off when it did.
"All right. Take a look at this first."
Gwon Du-il started by showing me a compilation of viewer responses to the one-act drama that had aired last week. All of it was praise, but he had gathered only the comments that specified exactly which parts people had liked.
He had no intention of teaching me technical acting. What he was proposing instead was that I hone the elements the public had responded to positively.
An actor the public wants gets to do more work. Knowing their tastes matters.
Before the regression, I had mostly received feedback on acting technique rather than public reaction. I had needed that at the time, and it had also been a way of keeping outside opinions from shaking me. He was showing me this now because he believed I wouldn't be shaken.
I liked this change.
I skimmed through the material, then passed the tablet to Mom, who still couldn't take her eyes off it.
The next topic seemed to give him a little more trouble; Gwon Du-il hesitated before speaking.
"Thanks to how well that one-act did, a bunch of offers came into the company. They don't look bad to me, but hear me out."
"What kind of offers?"
Gwon Du-il scratched his cheek.
"Su-a, wanna shoot a commercial with me?"
Oh. Commercials. I had seen this coming, honestly, but I put on a polite look of surprise.
Mom's head snapped up at the word. Lee Won-seok grinned as he set several documents down on the table.
"They're saying you and the boss have great chemistry, so a pile of joint commercial offers came in. Frying pans, gas ranges, kitchen knives... The cookware side is mostly centered on him, thanks to that cooking scene, but a few with you as the face came in too—kimchi fried rice meal kits, kids' drinks, that sort of thing."
"Wow... does she have to do all of these?"
"Not at all, ma'am. Child actors have to manage how their image is consumed very carefully from a young age. Keeping commercials to a minimum while taking on as many good projects as possible—that's Hangil Entertainment's philosophy."
That was what he said, yet the way he quietly slid a few proposals across made it obvious he was hoping we would shoot one or two. The business was still in its early days, with plenty of money going out; every bit of income would help.
Playing along with his hopes, I flipped through a few of the proposals, then turned to Gwon Du-il.
"Some decent commercials did come in."
"Right?"
"If we play it well, a few of them could even turn into long-term contracts."
"Exactly, exactly."
"What do you think?"
"Well... if you want to do them, we do them. If you don't, we don't."
"Then I won't."
"All right."
Gwon Du-il and I looked at each other and grinned.
Lee Won-seok, flustered, rapped the table.
"Wait—you're turning down all of these?!"
"To be blunt, it isn't that many. Some of them even look like they were thrown together in a rush."
"They had no idea Dad's Screening would do this well, so that's only natural, isn't it? Setting those aside, the rest weren't bad. One or two would be worth trying..."
"Sure. Worth trying. But listen, Won-seok."
Gwon Du-il looked at him and slowly lifted the corner of his mouth. With the right lighting, it could have been a scene out of a mafia picture.
"I think this kind of money is nowhere near enough for Su-a's acting or her image."
"Ah—yes. Yes, sir."
"Once she shoots one or two more projects, that's when she'll start commanding a real fee. No need to put her seal on a bargain rate this early."
Lee Won-seok shuddered. With word choices like that, it sounded as if they were selling me off.
I stretched out my short arm and patted his shoulder.
"Don't worry. I'll do well."
"Y-yeah, of course you will... It's just, these commercials would be a shame to let go..."
"Then we just don't let them go."
"Huh?"
I smiled, full of confidence.
"In a few months? A year at the latest, every commercial that came in this time will come back—intact, and on better terms."
Along with a great many more of them, of course.
"Right now it's because Dad's Screening was a flash of buzz. Later, they'll come running because they want the actress named Lee Su-a."
At that, not only Lee Won-seok but Mom and Gwon Du-il as well wore faintly incredulous expressions. The look on their faces asked how a little kid could talk as if she already knew what was coming.
But Gwon Du-il soon let out a hearty laugh.
"That's right. That's how it ought to be."
"But you know that means we have to find a good project first, right?"
"Of course I know. That's why I called you in today."
As if commercials were the only offers that had come into the agency. Of course not. Plenty of proposals for a follow-up project would have come in as well.
I had made a promise to Mom, so I needed to find a good project. In truth, I already had one in mind.
They'd be preparing the child-actor auditions around now, wouldn't they?
It was the first title that had come to mind when I listed the projects I wanted to do after regressing. The first film in a series that had nearly been my screen debut, before the regression.
Casting had definitely started around this time. I hadn't even gotten to audition—I hadn't properly debuted yet—but I had clearly seen articles about them casting the child role in the first film through auditions.
I had joined the second film in the series, and it had even been picked as a highly anticipated project... but something happened during the shoot, and the whole thing collapsed.
The director had stood by me and helped me to the end, even after the damage to his own work landed him in the papers. It had been a short time, but I had learned a great deal.
This time, I wanted to work with him from the very beginning.
...That bastard wasn't even in the first film, so Mom shouldn't be in any danger.
He was a cult-obsessed lunatic, so he might take an interest, but the director was an exacting man. There was no way that bastard would get cast with the acting skills he had at this point. We wouldn't cross paths on this film. And I would make sure we never did afterward, either.
I had to make sure of it. I would make sure of it. No matter what...
The idle thought left a sour feeling in my stomach. I focused on what Gwon Du-il was saying.
"I may not look it, but people really do say I've got a good eye for scripts. And even by my standards, interesting scripts have been pouring in. Pretty much every script in Korea that needs a child actor must've landed here."
"Come on."
"Don't you 'come on' me! I'm serious! Even a really famous writer sent one, and the requests asking us to just make a part so you can appear for a bit have piled up like a mountain!"
That was exaggeration no matter how you looked at it. Though it did seem more calls had come in than he had expected.
Seeing him that happy made me feel a little guilty. He had gone to all the trouble of picking scripts for me, and I was going to choose a project I would have to hunt down an audition for and win the role myself.
It was a shame, too, to pass on work chosen by someone with as good an eye as Gwon Du-il.
I was still wondering how to talk him around when the first script binder he pulled out caught my eye. For some reason, the cover looked familiar.
"Director Hong even sent a script, you know? You know Director Hong, right? He was invited to the Academy Awards the year before last. Maybe you were too young then? Anyway, the script is really, truly good. A film might feel unfamiliar, but if I had to pick just one, it'd be this, no question!"
"I see. But actually, what I want to do is... Wait. Director Hong? Director Hong Il-beom?"
"That's the one! I knew you'd know him! In Korea, if you say Director Hong, there's only Hong Il-beom. That Director Hong said your acting left an impression on him, and he sent over a script."
I took the script from Gwon Du-il at once. The title was written large across the cover.
A title I knew.
But...
What's going on with that subtitle?
Wondering if it might not be the project I was thinking of, I skimmed through the script.
The setting was the fifth year of King Jeongjo's reign, in the Joseon era. The plot was the same: a young official receives a secret royal order and is sent to investigate a rural village.
But the role I had been aiming for had grown considerably in weight, and a good deal of the dialogue and setup had changed. A substantial portion of the second film I had shot had been folded into the first.
The overall story followed the second film, while the opening, like the first, brought the protagonist and the other main characters on strong.
This is good, actually.
It was fun. More interesting than the script I had read before the regression.
I understood why Gwon Du-il had put this one forward first, with such confidence.
That was Director Hong for you. To write something this magnificent and send it over...
Wait. The script had arrived?
Then what about the audition?