Casting (1)
Several days had passed since the meeting with the writer.
In that time, Byeongki had developed a new ritual for when he got home after work.
It wasn’t anything grand.
Why didn’t I say a single thing?
After losing an argument, he would brood over it and think, Ah! I should have said it like that instead! Once the fear from the meeting dulled, belated bravado would swell up in its place.
Today was no different.
Maybe he’d gotten carried away and said something rude, but was that really a reason to act so offended?
Wasn’t the writer the one who’d made such a big deal out of it and dragged everyone into the mood?
Maybe he should have asserted the director’s authority then and there?
His thoughts went round and round.
To be honest, if he dug down to the true root of every concern, it all came down to one thing: his pride had been wounded.
That was right.
Min Byeongki, drama PD and possessor of a bloated film-director ego.
He hated being made to swallow it like this.
I need a way. A way to recover my authority!
He trembled as he thought it through. Since flaunting the storyboard and strutting around had failed, he’d have to show his greatness from another angle.
The first thing that came to mind was script criticism.
Film directors usually had at least some aptitude for screenwriting.
So Byeongki unfolded Jaekyung’s script, looking for something to pick apart.
But then—
Thunk!
...Maybe I should find another way.
He’d hit a wall, and he knew it.
He could feel with painful clarity that he would never beat Jaekyung with writing. Still, there’s no shame in writing worse than someone whose whole job is living off words, is there?
Nod, nod.
Having finished rationalizing that away, he moved on to his next plan.
Drama is visual, after all. What if I explained a ton of things needed for the visuals and showed that I could handle them all on my own?
Location scouting and set-prop design were visual territory the writer wouldn’t know anything about!
He could do all of it—bang, bang, bang—and then say, “Well, something like that, I suppose?” Just imagining the scene made him feel better already.
“Right. I can do this!”
Filled with resolve, he sprang up and started working, only for—
“Min PD, get me mock-ups for the set and prop design within four days. Oh, and scout the outdoor filming locations too—turn in your report by the day after tomorrow.”
“Eh?”
“What do you mean, eh? You know our schedule’s tight.”
Right. Of course.
This was a fire-fighting production.
Cold sweat slid down Byeongki’s back.
C-can I even make the deadline?
No. There was no way in hell.
His vision went white, and all that remained was a desperate hope that maybe someone would appear like a savior and help him.
Ring-ring!
Jaekyung called.
“Yes, y-yes! This is Min Byeongki!”
“Yes?”
Was he about to push back again?
Byeongki even narrowed his eyes and glared at the phone as if it were a snake, but this time it was the opposite.
He was floored.
Is this guy some kind of saint?
Byeongki bit his lip.
Just moments ago, he’d been tearing around trying to blunt Jaekyung’s momentum, and now Jaekyung was going out of his way to help with things that weren’t even his job.
He felt pitifully small.
And Jaekyung felt impossibly large.
“T-those things, you didn’t have to go that far...”
That was the moment Byeongki’s eyes started to water.
That one line—said as if it were nothing—drove itself straight into Byeongki’s chest.
“W-writer...”
Min Byeongki, avatar of an ego that kept trying to climb back up even after someone had set the hierarchy in place.
His heart now melted gently, sinking into the sea that was Jaekyung.
His loyalty even began to surge.
And because of that, the words came spilling out.
“Writer, I think I may have misunderstood you...”
“Um, last time too, you said things like we shouldn’t steal each other’s roles, or cross the line, so I thought you were the kind of person who just handled your own work and left the other side to fend for itself, but now you’re helping me like this...”
Most people wouldn’t blurt out every thought they had like that, but Byeongki didn’t know any better.
He just said everything as it came, raising his goodwill toward Jaekyung in real time.
He would probably never understand that by speaking those thoughts aloud, he had changed the ratio of whip to candy in Jaekyung’s mind.
“Thank you! Thank you so much!”
...Maybe it was better that he never found out.
* * *
When you were running a large-scale media project like a drama, there was one thing that was absolutely indispensable.
Thorough preparation?
Big-picture promotion?
Money, then?
None of that.
The answer was a good relationship with the person holding the decision-making power.
“Look at those two—they suit each other so well. Huh? Byeongki! What do you think of Writer Han!? Isn’t he a real mensch?”
“R-right!”
“You’re too kind, Chief. Director.”
“Hahaha! Writer Han, you don’t need to be so modest either! I can guarantee it—our Writer Han is the real deal! I mean his character, of course!”
“I-I know that very well! He’s helped me a lot! I got plenty of advice from him on this location scouting and set concept work too!”
“Oh? Writer Han went that far for you?”
“Yes! He really knows his stuff!”
Min Byeongki shot me a sidelong glance and tried to show goodwill.
I’d heard what he’d said over the phone, so it didn’t exactly look cute to me, but still.
Honestly, I hadn’t helped him for any grand reason.
I simply didn’t want any needless noise during production prep, and since I’d already gone through this stage before regression, I was sharing the answer key from my memory.
But this man, who changed his nose-in-the-air posture faster than a cursed penny stock’s chart, had apparently been affected by it.
Well, at least the goodwill is there.
Wasn’t that enough?
As I was thinking that, Chief Go Yeongchan said, “...Writer Han, you’re very sincere. You really studied hard...”
“I only remembered a few things from research trips I took while developing the script. And the prop concept came from materials I was looking into.”
“No, no. Writer Han, you don’t need to sell yourself short like that! You deserve more praise than that!”
“Ah, yes...”
Would there come a day when I’d hear Go Yeongchan’s behind-the-scenes stories about his career?
At this point, I was even curious what had dragged his notion of the “average writer” down that far.
Well, if he’s looking at me kindly, I should be grateful...
Anyway, back to the main point.
Why were a good relationship and mutual trust with decision-makers so important?
Because it made it easier to voice my opinion in situations like today.
“Ah, we’re here. Let’s go in. This is the audition room.”
The place Go Yeongchan brought me to was a fairly large seminar room inside the network building.
They’d cleared the space out and left behind a stark, barren setup: a camera for recording auditions, a few lights, and a table for the judges to sit at.
“This is your first time judging, right, Writer Han?”
“I know the basics. I’ve learned some things, heard others.”
“Haha! That makes this easier. As you know, when we’re looking at actors, we consider acting skill, screen presence, and how well they fit the genre. But...”
“Yes. I know there are also certain people the higher-ups or investors want.”
“I’d like to preserve our discretion if I could, but I’ve got unavoidable complications too. Still, if you give me your opinion, I’ll match it as much as I can. It’s not just anyone—we’re talking about you, Writer Han. I can pull some strings for that!”
The trust shining in those bright eyes had never felt more valuable than it did today.
This was why relationships mattered.
In a situation like this, with a rookie writer and a rookie director, the CP’s power was enormous in practical terms, and if I wanted to speak my opinion to someone like that, I needed emotional goodwill strong enough to smother the logic.
Outside placements are unavoidable. As long as they don’t have any major disqualifying flaws, it’s fine. This isn’t a drama where supporting roles carry the whole thing.
Thinking that, I took my seat at the judging table and scanned the list of audition participants.
First up was the character who would play Yeong-ho.
Min Byeongki asked me, “What will you be looking at most closely, Writer Han?”
“First, I’d like someone with a slightly rougher face. Their voice should be low, but they need to have good diction when they speak in that register. But more than anything... yes, I want an actor whose tonal range fits. It’s a role with a lot of nonverbal expression.”
“Ah, yes, that is important. Every actor has a different strength when it comes to tone.”
It was an important point.
People often assumed that a truly great actor could handle any role flawlessly, but if anything, the opposite was true.
Every actor had different stats.
Some were strong in comic timing but couldn’t handle melodrama, while others could do seriousness well but fell apart when it came to lightness.
If you thought of it like a game, it was like warriors only knowing how to use swords and archers only knowing how to use bows.
Of course, there were actors who could handle several areas, but even they usually had one field where they were especially outstanding, and when choosing scripts, they tended to prefer characters that could bring that strength out.
This production was no different.
Yeong-ho, the protagonist of Sword-Bound Gentleman, was heavy and serious.
His reactions needed a noir-like flavor, and above all, he had to be skilled at nonverbal acting—letting emotion sit in his eyes, or pour out through a downward glance.
If the character interpretation was shallow or the tone was off, he could easily become the kind of shambling, obnoxious character people wanted to slap.
I wanted an actor who understood those small differences.
Min Byeongki added, “Ahem, I think I’ll mostly be watching the movements. You know, when you see kids who are good at action, it’s just...”
“I’m leaving that part in your hands, Director. You’ll know more about it than I do.”
“R-right! I did study action as my major, after all...”
“But in the end, for drama we still have to consider the ability to carry a long-form narrative. I’d appreciate it if you kept that in mind.”
“Ah... yes! Got it! Absolutely! Narrative execution! Emotional line!”
Min Byeongki’s eyes rolled around.
This should be enough.
His weakness was melodrama.
Action and pacing were excellent, but when it came to dissecting emotional lines, he was shaky.
...Although, to be fair, even that wasn’t such a terrible flaw.
The reason his debut work had failed came down to one thing: the writer’s script had been trash.
But that wasn’t important right now.
People were creatures of experience, and at this point, Min Byeongki had just buried his previous melodrama hard enough to crater his confidence in that area.
From here on, he’d worry over emotional lines and all that in his head, come up with no answers, and end up handing the decision over to me.
Then the problem is Go Yeongchan...
I glanced at him.
“You two are getting along this well? Even acknowledging each other like that...”
Judging by the tearful look on his face, I didn’t seem to need to worry.
It felt a little awkward staring any longer, so I looked away.
Just then, the timing was perfect.
“Senior! We’re starting the audition!”
“Oh! Let’s go!”
The audition began.
* * *
I had plenty of experience judging auditions.
So I knew the process was not some majestic, romantic thing.
How did I know?
If you asked me, I’d answer without hesitation.
The issue was that I couldn’t screen the applicants by quality before deciding whether to interview them.
“Aaaah? You wanna die? Huh? Huhhh?!?”
A skinny man in his seventies thrust his chin forward and screeched like a banshee.
He scraped at his throat as though trying to lift his energy by brute force, and I half wondered whether he’d start coughing up blood from doing that.
I didn’t even know if he’d looked at the script; he was inventing lines that weren’t there and hurling curses around, and as the original creator, all I felt was disgust.
He wasn’t the only problem.
The audition room was a full-blown parade of human grotesqueries.
“If you don’t wanna die, stop right therrrrr...”
A kid who added his own chorus.
“Well I’ll be damned, ya came all gathered up in a heap, did ya~!”
A kid who turned a Busan gangster into a Jeolla gangster.
“I have my own principles. I must repay the kindness of those who fed me.”
A kid who turned Yeong-ho, a rough-and-ready thug, into a refined lady from a respectable household.
Still, even those were better than the worst of them.
At least they were acting, weren’t they?
The really serious kind was something else entirely.
“Hello. Before I begin my performance, may I say one thing?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“What do you think life is?”
Every time an audition opens up, at least five idiots like this show up.
People so intoxicated by some actor’s memoir or a dramatic behind-the-scenes story they’d heard somewhere that they started pulling this sort of stunt.
The most useless bastards imaginable.
Their whole attitude screamed, I’m trying to get by without paying the price.
If you want to compete, do it honestly with your acting. Starting with cheap tricks is just pathetic.
If they were actually good at acting, I might not say anything.
But their skill level was so pitiful it was painful just to watch.
By now, do you see what I mean?
This was the kind of filter a casting director used on the first pass.
Of course, there were mistakes caused by not being able to examine people closely enough during the selection process, but that fact didn’t make it any less exhausting.
If there was any consolation, it was that no moment lasted forever.
And that there were also plenty of applicants who acted with real substance and gave good performances.
“Ughhhh, so that’s it for Yeong-ho?”
“You both worked hard.”
“No, it’s work—we’ve got to keep at it. More importantly, Writer Han, is there anyone who caught your eye?”
“A few.”
“Ohhh?”
The entertainment world was so small.
Actors were a profession with notoriously long stretches of anonymity.
It wasn’t because they lacked skill so much as there simply weren’t enough jobs; even after they’d already pushed themselves up to the threshold, some people still couldn’t get into the light.
This audition had a few of those people too.
People who would, within a few years, make a signature work and become known faces.
Beyond that, they’d become stars the public cheered for.
I know all these names.
One in particular stood out to me.
Na Jingeon.
He was still in his late twenties, but he was already a finished actor.
His face was aggressively masculine, with every trace of prettiness thrown straight into the trash; he stood 188 centimeters tall, and his body wasn’t fully built yet, but the entertainment market in 2013 didn’t care that much about body quality.
A little refinement would be enough, and if you added some scar makeup, he’d have exactly the rough atmosphere needed for Yeong-ho.
Most of all, his tone was excellent.
No wonder he made a name for himself.
Even in the future, Na Jingeon would be loved for weighty roles that used his deep voice and heavy-lidded eyes.
His acting range was wide, too; he could pull off anything from a reckless man living only for today to a cold-blooded analyst without breaking stride.
And best of all, he had not a single scandal to his name.
The only controversy this man has is that he plays games in his room all day.
I honestly couldn’t see any reason not to cast him.
If you asked me who was the most appealing piece of merchandise at this point in time, I could pick him without a second of hesitation.
Meanwhile, Go Yeongchan grinned and said, “Looks like our Writer Han has someone he’s really into?”
I didn’t bother denying it.
“Yes. One person.”
“Tell me later. I’ll use it as a reference.”
“Would that be all right?”
“I’ve been on set a long time too. I know a writer’s favorite actor is usually the one who fits best.”
If he put it that way, then I had to be grateful.
I was already worried about Na Jingeon’s thin career trajectory.
I made a note of it.
Then Go Yeongchan stretched and said, “Hngh, good. Once we factor in the supporting roles, it gets a little dizzying, but let’s push through!”
Of course we would.
I didn’t want to make the same mistake twice in a row just because of people.
I turned the file page.
Next is Hyang-dan.
The heroine who would carry the story together with the lead.
Her rough setup was this: an orphan taken in by an aging tavern keeper, she followed the woman like a mother and, after her death, doggedly ran the tavern to protect the only inheritance she had left.
She was a character who started by finding and feeding Yeong-ho after he fell into Joseon, and then, because Yeong-ho insisted on repaying his debt, ended up building up the tavern among the violent men of Geomgye almost by accident.
Just like Yeong-ho—
No, if you looked at the amount of dialogue, maybe even more than Yeong-ho—she was the kind of role that demanded extreme care, so I needed to stay sharp.
That was when I looked at the first applicant’s profile.
“...”
My head went cold.
At that moment, click—the applicant opened the door and walked in.
I lifted my head and saw a face I knew far too well.
“G-good afternoon! I’m applicant number 712, Ryu Cheong-ah!”
Even with nervousness stiffening her features, it was impossible not to gush the classic praises: beautiful, graceful, refined. Yet her features were too large and striking to be called merely traditional East Asian beauty.
From a wider perspective, she wasn’t terribly tall, but her head was small, which made her proportions excellent.
And when she spoke, the air in the room vibrated pleasantly, sharpening everyone’s focus.
The moment she appeared, the attitudes of Go Yeongchan and Min Byeongki changed.
She had that much presence; it made people pay attention without meaning to.
But I couldn’t melt into that atmosphere.
Of course not.
- ...I’m sorry, Writer.
One of the stains on my life was standing right in front of me.
The worst woman of all—the woman who had killed herself the moment week one aired and blown the whole production to pieces—so how could I possibly act as if nothing was wrong?
“I-I’ll start acting right away!”
“Oh? Hahaha! That’s got spirit! All right, then, don’t be nervous—show us what you’ve got.”
“Yes, sir!”
My fist tightened.
The profile in my hand crumpled.