The Face of the Work
Call casting.
On the drive back to the company, the car was silent in a way it hadn't been on the way out.
And small wonder—no one could begin to picture what kind of drama Writer Choi Yu-jin intended to write. With me as the sole exception, the rest of the staff were all lost in their own thoughts. Fair enough. Even I found it astonishing that the drama would turn out to be that.
But when we got back to the house, Vice President Gam Soo-han paused, then asked the others, "Heeyoon just... got cast in Writer Choi Yu-jin's drama, right?"
At his words, CEO Gam Seong-beom and Do Jae-yeon, whose expressions had been complicated, turned around—and then, little by little, their faces changed.
Right. At the time it would have thrown them, but think it through one more time and it becomes obvious. That this was an enormous opportunity.
CEO Gam Seong-beom crushed me in a bear hug, while Do Jae-yeon hurried into her seat and said, "Boss! Let's send Heeyoon's promo materials to Cheongcheon Studio in advance!"
"Hold on—let's look through them together!"
And so CEO Gam Seong-beom scrambled to prepare the materials for Cheongcheon alongside her.
Filming began before the weather had even turned cold. The Leader Actors people held their tongues, but they were staggered that production was moving this smoothly on the strength of the proposal alone.
As for me, I didn't learn what my role actually was until my casting article was about to drop—that was when the script finally landed in my hands. Nearly every actor who'd been cast said the same thing: they hadn't known what part they'd gotten, the script had simply arrived. Even the leads.
Only after the script reached my hands could the people at the company finally breathe.
"So that's what it was about..."
The "religious conflict" had referred to what goes on inside a cult. The premise—alien vampires versus homegrown ones—began with the cult's leader, and with the protagonist, born and raised inside the cult, brainwashed, until one day she starts sensing that something is wrong.
My role was the boy who becomes the catalyst that awakens her—exactly as Writer Choi Yu-jin had said, the face of the work.
That was when I realized it: I needed to prepare a face more than acting ability. And not a charming one, either. It had to be the face of a boy who could tell the audience what kind of story this was—born and raised in a cult, brainwashed like flowing water, until the day the brainwashing cracks and he wets himself with doubt.
Right up until I left for filming, I did nothing but read the script or watch movies with Woo Woong-bae. Ever since I'd started living on my own, he'd been dropping by Wooheonjeong constantly. A place without adults probably suited him fine.
Midway through editing footage, he said, "You got that selfie from the amusement park last time?"
"Yeah."
I showed him the selfie of me in my bunny-ear headband, and he said, very calmly, "What the hell did you shoot, you lunatic."
"My face."
"How does a face like that find an angle this shit-awful?"
"Ugh, just delete it."
"This is a net negative on your life."
Woo Woong-bae, who took the management of my face more seriously than my own agency did, deleted the only selfie I had ever taken. Then he simply procured a fresh supply of photos of me from the other acting-department kids.
I watched the amusement park video he'd made. Work from a film major was simply cheating. The quality defied all logic.
He was studying art on the side, too—for the sake of visual beauty. To create beauty, he said, you had to understand absolute beauty itself.
Watching that video in which he made me the protagonist, I found myself thinking that maybe, to the people who make films, the world looks like it has a cinematic filter laid over it.
Peering over at his screen from beside him, I said, "You really love my face."
"Ha, damn it."
"Just saying you've got the fundamentals of aesthetics down. Mm."
Having had even one day where I played around giddily with friends was a change beyond anything my previous life could compare to. And within that, it struck me as a little miraculous that my best friend was growing in the same industry I was looking toward. Though not hugely miraculous. After all, the only people around anyone who does film are other people who do film…
Anyway, while Woo Woong-bae worked, I sprawled out beside him, nibbling on the snacks his mother had sent over, reading the script. Just as I hit a genuinely fun stretch, he piped up.
"Why does a guy who wants to be a celebrity hate having his picture taken so much?"
"Who takes photos for other people to look at?"
"Get fans later and they'll look."
"I don't think audiences love the actor. Most of them fall for the actor's role—the actor just comes bundled along with it."
"Summarize that. You're mumbling into a script, I can't follow you."
I clicked my tongue, briefly lifted my eyes from the script, and told him, "Which means no matter how hard the body tries, it can't beat the role. Even if I left ten million photos behind, people would love a single moment of the role more."
"Can't tell if you're being cynical or romantic."
"I'm not the type to get fans in the first place. Stop talking to me."
Media was something I kept because I liked it, nothing more.
Photos were for the future me, or for people who might someday miss me. But I had neither of those. So there wasn't the slightest reason to take many pictures.
With that, I ended the conversation and sank, utterly helpless, into the script.
Woo Woong-bae thought there was hardly another lunatic like him in the whole world.
A face like that, and he'd never once thought to record it every single day. I hate having my picture taken? What decadent nonsense was that. From the standpoint of a directing hopeful, it was incomprehensible.
Lee Heeyoon, who had been lying down with the script, apparently found it uncomfortable, because he sat up partway through. Then, curled up like a silkworm with his spine fully rounded, he buried his head in the pages.
Every now and then Woo Woong-bae smacked him once on the back of the neck.
"Actors need good posture."
"Yeah, true."
Whereupon the guy who normally rejected everything anyone said would answer obediently and straighten his back. When it came to acting—when it was something he could accept—he'd nod along and agree yeah, fair point even if you punched him first.
Lee Heeyoon turned into a silkworm any number of times after that, and only surfaced from the script when Woo Woong-bae called, straightening up for a moment before diving back in.
By sunset he had read the whole thing. He flopped the script over his face and grumbled, "Ugh, there's no next script. Damn it, this is driving me insane. Should I call the Writer? She'd know what happens next, right?"
"She's the one dying to know what happens next, you dope. She hasn't written it yet, so she doesn't know either."
"What kind of nonsense is that."
"That's a thing that exists."
Woo Woong-bae was curious about the script Lee Heeyoon was holding, but he knew there was zero chance of being shown it, so he didn't even ask.
Lee Heeyoon was flipping back to the first page, aching to know what came next, when a call came through to his phone. He picked it up, said something, then went, "Huh? Sorry, what? I can't hear you. One moment."
Then he started smacking the phone, whack whack. Woo Woong-bae stared at him in disbelief. "What are you doing?"
"The call won't come through."
So the machine was broken, and his solution was to hit it. Watching from the side, the man's utter lack of life skills was genuinely a wonder to behold.
"Give it here," said Woo Woong-bae, who fancied himself decent with machines.
As he took the phone, he could hear Vice President Gam Soo-han's startled voice coming through from the other end—what on earth is that sound?—so he answered.
"Oh, hello, Vice President. It's Woong-bae."
"Ah, Woong-bae! You startled me... what was that noise?"
"Lee Heeyoon says his call won't connect, so he's been hitting the phone. It works fine."
As he was murmuring this, something occurred to Woo Woong-bae, and he shoved away the arm of Lee Heeyoon—who was reaching to take the phone back—and asked, "What were you calling to talk about? I can pass it along."
"Ah. Well... is it okay to tell you?"
"Vice President, I'll be working in this industry too. I won't breathe a word."
"Mm... I think he's worried because Heeyoon doesn't have any credits yet. Apparently the production side is pushing another actor harder. And supposedly that kid's directly connected to Moby Dick Entertainment, too."
"Han Jeong-hyeon?"
"Right! Oh—of course, you're at the same school."
"Naturally, I know him."
At that, Lee Heeyoon scowled and asked from the side, "What? Is this a secret conversation?"
"It's about Han Jeong-hyeon."
"Huh? What did you say?"
"It's a conversation about Han Jeong-hyeon. Han Jeong-hyeon. Class 2's top student, Han Jeong-hyeon."
As expected, he couldn't hear a word of it—his expression only grew darker and darker—until finally he swore and pressed his palm hard against his forehead.
"Damn it, suddenly my eyeballs feel like they're about to pop out."
Then he raised his head, and his eyes really were bloodshot. This was no joke.
Woo Woong-bae remembered how Lee Heeyoon had collapsed right after transferring into Class 2, and how the school had been thrown into chaos over it.
Honestly, he'd assumed even that was part of Lee Heeyoon's concept. The guy was such an oddball that he'd taken it as some persona of his—not wanting to be around actors his own age. But even granting it was a persona, could anyone maintain it that flawlessly? Was that just what actors were like?
At some point Lee Heeyoon seemed to have grasped roughly what was going on, because he picked up the noise-canceling headset Woo Woong-bae had been using and said, "Take the call for me."
"Sure."
"But. Is my script going to get snatched?"
Hopeless with machines, sure—but clearly nothing else about him was deficient. Lee Heeyoon had pieced together the situation from context and asked, and Woo Woong-bae answered, "Can't say for certain."
"Ha, how annoying..."
Even as he said it, Lee Heeyoon pulled the headset on. For all the swearing, he was back inside the script almost immediately.
Woo Woong-bae spoke to Vice President Gam Soo-han. "Han Jeong-hyeon and Lee Heeyoon aren't acquainted or anything."
"Really? Then why would he be sabotaging... Anyway, Writer Choi Yu-jin took such a liking to Heeyoon that I doubt he'll be stolen away that easily."
"Then it's fine, isn't it?"
"Yes, it should be fine. Still, it nags at me a little."
"Vice President—why not just not tell Heeyoon? He goes to the audition, you deliver the results. If the role doesn't get stolen, great. If it does... we deal with it then."
"Right. You have a point. I'll tell him once things are certain. Thank you, Woong-bae. It's always such a comfort having you around."
Vice President Gam Soo-han was heavy with worry, but as always he didn't lose his gentleness; he said his goodbyes warmly and hung up.
Then he looked over at Lee Heeyoon—who had already forgotten the call entirely and was buried in the script again.
"...Damn it, he'd better not get stolen away."
Woo Woong-bae murmured it and turned back to the amusement park footage. He couldn't concentrate at all.
Writer Choi Yu-jin was studying the profile of one Han Jeong-hyeon, a student at the same school as Lee Heeyoon.
Even now, Han Jeong-hyeon was doing the bulk of his work in theater. His overall presence carried a charisma so overwhelming you couldn't believe his age. There was no question he had the looks to overpower an audience.
Writer Choi Yu-jin set Lee Heeyoon's profile and Han Jeong-hyeon's side by side. Then, exasperated, she said, "So this Han Jeong-hyeon kid himself had no intentions at all, and his company just showered you in excessive loyalty, is that it?"
"That's what I'm telling you."
"Power really is convenient. Life must be so easy. No, but wait—this kid hasn't auditioned even for my drama? I'm Choi Yu-jin, you know."
"He says he still wants to do theater. Since you're Choi Yu-jin, unni, even Moby Dick's son ought to come by and apologize in person before he goes."
Having delivered that answer, CEO Lee Juyeon shot her a look of pure incomprehension and chided her. "More to the point, Writer—you took one look at his profile and said Lee Heeyoon was the better fit. So why do you keep staring at it?"
"You saw his face and his eyes when he came here, didn't you? Now I want his debut work for myself."
Everyone present understood what she meant. Discovering an unknown actor and turning them into a superstar through your own work was, always and forever, a delicious fantasy. For writers and for everyone in the industry alike, it was the kind of daydream that made the dopamine surge.
Writer Choi Yu-jin set the profiles down. "Everyone's first work, fine, whatever. But who do you think will cast them first? These two, as grown men, appearing in the same medium."
"If you want to see it that badly, unni, write it yourself," said CEO Lee Juyeon.
"No. I want to watch something someone else wrote."
As she spoke, Writer Choi Yu-jin stacked the two profiles together and slid them into a clear file. Then she told CEO Lee Juyeon, "If you're dying to plug an actor in somewhere, find them a different role. And tell Han Jeong-hyeon's people: if he's willing to audition, he can come back."
"You won't even use him and you're holding auditions for him?"
"I'm curious about his acting, aren't I? If he comes, I'll build a role around him and slot him in."
"That appetite of yours for actors, honestly... But the Moby Dick boy still only wants to do theater, remember."
"Then it's a bust."
"Aigoo, fine. What business ever runs smooth, anyway."
Writer Choi Yu-jin coveted both Lee Heeyoon and Han Jeong-hyeon, but she had no intention of giving up Lee Heeyoon's role. Han Jeong-hyeon, who had visited the company in person, had grasped that fact at once, paid his respects, and left.
She'd said she wanted to claim both actors' debut works. If she had to choose one, it was Lee Heeyoon. Her promise to create a role for the other one made that clear enough.
CEO Lee Juyeon stole a glance toward Director An Ji-seong. Director An Ji-seong, who had worked alongside Writer Choi Yu-jin for years, was saying the same thing as always.
"I'm curious too, believe me. But even if the kid himself says he wants it—this time, we're using actor Lee Heeyoon."