I Acted Once, and Now They Call Me a Genius - Chapter 153

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 153

“1, 1 billion?”

After meeting Kim Ji-hun, Seon-woo immediately sought consultation with Seo Ryeong and Do-won.

And upon hearing Seon-woo’s story, Seo Ryeong’s jaw dropped open.

“No way, is that guy insane? To receive that much, you’d have to at least reach leading role level. What the hell is he trusting to offer that much?”

Seo Ryeong’s shock was understandable.

For top stars, it’s common for contracts to involve tens of billions in signing fees alone, but Seon-woo isn’t such a top star.

Although he’s on an upward trajectory now, he’s still just a newcomer without any leading role experience.

Being offered a signing fee of 1 billion was bound to be bewildering.

“Well, it’s not an impossible offer.”

Nevertheless, Do-won said this.

“It might be different for the idol industry. But in the film industry, KS is a latecomer. If they can properly establish a route into this field through Seon-woo, they might think that 1 billion has its own value. They might have considered the stock price rising too. It’s not money spent with recovery in mind. It’s spent for symbolic meaning.”

“Even so! With 1 billion, you could buy a house in Gangnam!”

“These days, that money won’t get you more than 20 pyeong.”

“…Anyway! Still, big money is big money.”

Seo Ryeong answered somewhat sheepishly while looking at Seon-woo.

Either way, being offered a signing fee of 1 billion was something to be happy about. Perhaps because of this, her eyes were sparkling as if she was more excited than anyone.

“So Seon-woo, what are you going to do?”

“…Idiot. Can’t you see?”

And before Seon-woo could answer, Do-won spoke with an indifferent expression.

“He’s obviously not excited at all.”

“…They’re offering 1 billion? And he’s not excited?”

Was that even possible?

Even though it was someone else’s business, Seo Ryeong’s lips were already trying to curl up into a grin.

But looking at it this way, Seon-woo’s expression indeed didn’t look very good.

It looked somewhat uncomfortable, you could say.

“Are you worried they might play tricks with the contract?”

“No, that’s not it. A company as big as KS wouldn’t have any reason to do that to me… I should look at the contract once more, but they seem to genuinely want to support me.”

“Then why?”

“…Well.”

Seon-woo hesitated for a moment.

He thought saying such things might make him seem immature.

But he couldn’t hide his true feelings while asking for advice. Eventually, Seon-woo opened his mouth with an embarrassed expression.

“They didn’t talk about acting.”

“…Huh?”

“It’s not just KS. LK, Life, Dasom… All the management companies that have approached me so far only talked about conditions and didn’t say a word about acting. What kind of acting do you want to do. What kind of projects do you want to work on. They didn’t ask about any of that at all. So maybe that’s why…”

Seon-woo lowered his head as if embarrassed.

“I’m not really excited about it.”

“…Crazy bastard.”

And Do-won immediately burst into laughter.

If someone else had said those words, he might have thought it was an act. But the Seon-woo he’d observed so far wasn’t someone who would put on such clumsy pretenses.

He probably genuinely thinks that way.

Given that, Seo Ryeong…

“…Am I the only materialistic one here?”

Could only laugh awkwardly.

I mean, I’ve been praising 1 billion this whole time. This makes me look like the only person who only thinks about money!

Seeing such Seo Ryeong, Seon-woo hurriedly waved his hands.

“Oh, no. I naturally want the 1 billion too. I know it’s big money. Well… with 1 billion, I could buy delicious food more often. But I was just wondering if it’s normal to only talk about money without discussing acting. Is that how it usually is?”

“Hmm… It varies case by case, but usually that’s how it is? After all, what management does is ultimately business, not art. More than anything, these days many actors are more interested in profit sharing than projects. Sometimes I wonder if some of them started acting just to shoot commercials.”

Upon hearing those words, one person came to mind.

Yeon-woo. She who said she appeared on 【I Am an Actor】 purely to make money.

If she were Seon-woo, she would have taken KS’s hand without a moment’s hesitation. Why would you refuse when they’re offering 1 billion?

But Seon-woo is not Yeon-woo.

The main purpose of his acting is not money.

Meeting good roles in better projects and delivering good performances.

That’s exactly the role Seon-woo expected from management. To push and guide him so that Seon-woo could become a better actor.

“Where else did you say offers came from?”

“Life, LK, Duosys, and Haneulcheon… Those are the major ones for now.”

“Hmm, LK is really quite good though.”

Seo Ryeong nodded.

Do-won looked at Seon-woo and said casually.

“Get an agency quickly.”

“…That would be best, right?”

“You did well not getting an agency before [Red Zone]. Back then, your value hadn’t been properly assessed yet. It would have been perfect for people to lowball you. But now…”

Do-won hesitated for a moment at this point.

“…You’re doing well, so from the agency’s perspective, they can’t treat you like an ordinary newcomer anymore. Just look at KS offering 1 billion.”

“Oh, am I doing well?”

“…”

“Why aren’t you answering? Just say I’m doing well.”

Seeing Do-won with his mouth tightly shut, Seo Ryeong giggled and laughed.

And he nodded while looking at Seon-woo.

“Anyway, I agree with Do-won’s words too. Living as a free spirit without an agency is nice, but there’s also a certain coziness you feel when you enter within the fence. It’s much more convenient for communicating with fans right away too.”

“…That was definitely something that bothered me a bit.”

Actually, at first he didn’t think much about fans.

Seon-woo didn’t know he had so many fans, or that they wanted to communicate with him so much.

“As soon as I made my SNS, I got tons of DMs. When I post something, they really leave a lot of comments…”

“…Right. Come to think of it, whenever you post something on SNS, you write these long essays. Why do you do that? Is it a concept?”

“Long essays?”

Seon-woo tilted his head as if he didn’t understand.

Seeing his expression that seemed to say he didn’t think he’d ever written anything that long, Seo Ryeong lost the desire to ask further. This guy is for real. Sometimes he really thought they just couldn’t communicate.

‘…Once he gets an agency, he won’t post those long essays anymore, right?’

Seo Ryeong’s expression became subtle for a moment.

While he felt relieved, there was also a sense of regret somewhere.

It was quite admirable in many ways how he shamelessly churned out those texts that others would treat as embarrassing history.

But any decent agency would try to stop him from writing such posts in the future. When you say too much, mistakes are bound to happen eventually.

‘Well, that’s the right approach.’

But, you never know.

Right. If he really meets an agency that’s as eccentric as himself, or even more so than himself…

* * *

The number of entertainment company people looking for Seon-woo kept growing day by day.

Accordingly, Seon-woo found himself having his time taken up more and more frequently, so much so that at some point he even had this thought.

‘Should I just make a decision quickly?’

Currently, the options that seemed most promising were LK and KS.

LK was the largest scale management agency for actors currently in existence, and KS was appealing because their conditions were ridiculously generous.

‘LK would probably be more stable when it comes to securing projects.’

The problem was that judging by the passion KS was showing toward Seon-woo, they didn’t seem like they would work carelessly either.

So choosing between the two wasn’t such an easy task.

Not because he wanted to go to both… but rather because neither particularly captured his heart.

‘It would be nice if there was a place that made me feel “This is it!”‘

I guess that would be difficult.

That’s what he was thinking one day.

Eleven PM. After finishing the scheduled filming and having a company dinner at a barbecue restaurant as usual, the atmosphere among the [Red Zone] production team suddenly turned cold.

“Hmm, is this the place?”

It was because a man with an extremely menacing appearance had suddenly entered the restaurant.

It wasn’t just his face that looked menacing. With a height that seemed to be around 190cm and muscles packed tight, he had the kind of physique you’d never want to fight with, not even as a joke.

On top of that, with his slicked-back hair and sunglasses…

‘…A gangster?’

‘Is he a gangster?’

‘He looks like a gangster?’

Everyone couldn’t help but have the same voice echoing in their heads.

The problem was why a gangster would come here… People couldn’t bring themselves to ask and just froze, staring at him quietly, when the man soon looked at Han Jeong-hun and grinned.

“Hey, PD Han Jeong-hun! Long time no see!”

At that booming voice, everyone turned to look at Han Jeong-hun.

With worried eyes full of concern, wondering if Han Jeong-hun had perhaps taken out some private loans.

However, Han Jeong-hun stood up with a calm expression.

“Ah, President. Please come in. Everyone, say hello. This is President Park Du-ho of Wild Management.”

And people just stood there with dumbfounded expressions.

Wild Management. It was the agency of Yu Si-hun, who had made a special appearance last time.

‘No way, what kind of president has such an appearance…’

‘…Could he possibly be from that background?’

‘He, he’s washed his hands clean, right?’

At least he didn’t seem to be a loan shark.

But even after learning his identity, the wariness on people’s faces didn’t easily disappear.

Why would Wild’s president come here without Yu Si-hun in the first place?

“I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m President Park Du-ho of Wild. Heh heh heh.”

That question was soon resolved.

After exchanging a few greetings with Han Jeong-hun, Park Du-ho approached Seon-woo directly and offered a handshake.

He had apparently come to scout Seon-woo as well.

The staff looked at Seon-woo with somewhat pitying expressions.

It seemed like whenever he got a bit of free time, he kept getting bothered by entertainment industry people, and now he’d have to deal with such a scary person too…

But Seon-woo wasn’t particularly nervous or anything.

While Park Du-ho’s appearance was intimidating, separately from that… somehow the aura emanating from the person didn’t feel particularly threatening.

Having become an actor, Seon-woo had naturally become able to roughly read people’s auras.

For some reason, he just had that feeling.

That despite his appearance, he probably wasn’t a particularly bad person.

And that thought,

“It’s been a while. CEO.”

“Haha, indeed. We should have a drink sometime!”

The moment Do-won greeted Park Du-ho, it became a bit stronger.

It seemed they already knew each other as greetings were exchanged naturally.

Do-won went ahead and asked what everyone present was curious about.

“Yes, that sounds good. But why did you suddenly come here?”

“Hahahaha, what reason would a cat have for lingering in front of a mill?”

“…Isn’t it a fish shop, not a mill? A mill is for sparrows.”

“…Was it? Anyway.”

Park Du-ho turned to look at Seon-woo and smiled slyly.

“I just couldn’t pass by. Mr. Kim Seon-woo. I’m not good at beating around the bush, so I’ll be straightforward. Work with us!”

Seon-woo couldn’t even answer and just gaped.

This was the first time someone had come in so bluntly without any preamble.

Usually they would talk about what kind of treatment they could offer, what vision they had, trying to entice him gradually while discussing all that… but to suddenly say let’s work together.

Perhaps reading his thoughts, or maybe finding it absurd himself.

Do-won let out a hollow laugh and frowned.

“Who would work together if you approach them like that?”

“Si-hun did?”

“That’s because he’s a lunatic. This guy is…”

Do-won, who had been looking at Seon-woo, suddenly hesitated.

“…Anyway, even being straightforward has its limits. What’s good about this guy working with Wilde?”

“Hmm… Everyone at our company has good personalities and exercises diligently. Do you like working out, Seon-woo? If you want, think of it as having tons of people who’ll give you PT almost for free.”

“That’s exactly why I’m saying that kind of thing doesn’t appeal at all.”

“Ah, I don’t know. I didn’t come here to talk about that stuff, so it can’t be helped. Mr. Kim Seon-woo. I’m really a fan. I watched everything diligently, both [Red Zone] and [One Room]. I especially watched that one too. [The Best Self-Portrait]. Personally, I found that really interesting.”

“You watched [The Best Self-Portrait]?”

And at that moment, Seon-woo’s eyes sparkled for the first time.

[The Best Self-Portrait]. Seon-woo’s actual debut work. A work that most people wouldn’t know well unless they were quite a fan of Seon-woo…

Park Du-ho crossed his arms, put on a boastful expression, and nodded.

“Yes. I felt it after watching that. Wow, this guy… is interesting. He acts so raw! So I became curious. What kind of actor is this guy? What does he think about when acting?”

Park Du-ho naturally snatched the drink that was in front of Do-won and drank it.

While Do-won’s expression soured, Park Du-ho’s eyes gleamed as he looked at Seon-woo.

“Mr. Kim Seon-woo, what kind of acting do you want to do?”

“…”

At that moment, Seon-woo couldn’t help but look a bit dazed.

It was actually nothing special as a question.

A question so common and obvious that any actor would encounter it routinely.

But why was it.

His heart, which had remained calm even when told he’d be sent to Hollywood, even when told he’d be given 1 billion won…

“I…”

At this moment, began to race.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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