I Acted Once, and Now They Call Me a Genius - Chapter 173

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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 173

“What is all this?”

“Oh my, hurry up and put on your clothes first. I personally had my court officials prepare your attire. You should consider this a family honor. Huhuhuhuhuh.”

…It seems like he’s really gotten into character properly.

Seon-woo accepted the court robes and headed to the dressing room. And soon he encountered an unexpected problem.

“…Is this how you’re supposed to wear this?”

Court robes were harder to put on than he thought.

He thought he could just tie the strings properly and wear it roughly… but there were many things about the order of putting on clothes and such that were difficult to know without research. It would be nearly impossible to wear without the help of the internet.

In the end, Seon-woo spent dozens of minutes struggling just to put on the court robes.

Who would have thought he’d be exhausted here before even starting practice. When he returned to the practice room in that worn-out state, Si-hun asked with a thin smile on his lips.

“So, how is it? Is even putting on mere court robes truly unfamiliar to you?”

It seemed like he had absolutely no intention of giving up that way of speaking.

Seon-woo nodded his head.

“I definitely felt it. What it means to act in a historical drama.”

Just because the era is different, even putting on a single piece of clothing becomes this difficult.

If even putting on one piece of clothing is like this, how much more difficult would it be to become a person from a completely different era?

‘Did he intend this when he told me to wear the court robes?’

If so, he had to acknowledge it.

Si-hun’s guidance was quite impressive. Now that he was wearing these clothes, Seon-woo was fully experiencing the weight of the character Yi Bang-won for the first time.

“It’s heavy.”

“Hehe, I showed mercy by giving you court robes instead of armor for that very reason. Be grateful.”

“…Did you rent this yourself, senior?”

“Rental? What does that word mean? Is it some Eastern dialect?”

His gimmick is unnecessarily thorough.

Should he be impressed by how well he’s immersed? Seon-woo chuckled and nodded his head.

“Yes. I asked if you borrowed it.”

“Hmm. I did not personally borrow it. The wilderness lent it to us.”

Wilderness?

It took Seon-woo about 5 seconds to realize that meant Wilde. Finally, unable to bear it anymore, Seon-woo’s gaze turned cold.

“Senior, are you going to keep using that way of speaking?”

“…Ugh. I was already having worldview conflicts anyway.”

And in an instant, the purple mist that Si-hun had been emanating cleared away.

Si-hun sighed and rubbed his temples.

“Historical dramas are definitely tough. My thoughts get cut off a lot in my head.”

“I think it would be even more so when doing method acting. Since the environment itself is so different.”

“Right. Even when I try to naturally think as King Woo in my head, modern thoughts keep popping up.”

“What should you do about that?”

“What can you do? It’s unavoidable.”

Si-hun casually shrugged his shoulders.

Seon-woo looked at Si-hun with surprise. He had thought Si-hun would somehow use extraordinary methods to narrow that gap.

But it wasn’t that he couldn’t understand Si-hun’s perspective.

“Instead of spending time on that, is it much more efficient to just focus on other aspects?”

“That’s part of it… but tell me, how high do you think the synchronization rate is between the historical dramas you’ve seen and actual history?”

“That’s…”

Seon-woo thought for a moment.

“Honestly, I don’t think it would even be 30%.”

“Yeah. You’re probably right. We think historical drama speech is faithful to the era, but this is more accurately closer to historical drama speech as conceived in modern times. If we really kept perfect historical accuracy, more people would probably say it’s boring.”

“So you’re saying there’s no need to try too hard to become one with that era, and we can just act by capturing that feeling appropriately?”

“You understand quickly. You’re definitely smart.”

Si-hun clapped his hands and nodded.

“Historical drama acting is ultimately about feeling. It’s not that we don’t need to follow historical accuracy, but ultimately the most important thing is looking plausible to viewers.”

“From that perspective, it might actually be better to have some modern unconsciousness remaining. Either way, we have to act in a way that fits modern people’s sensibilities.”

“Right. What we need to focus on now is ultimately the characters. Why King Woo did that nonsense, why Yi Bang-won killed Jeong Mong-ju, killed Jeong Do-jeon, and even killed his brothers to become king. We just need to understand that.”

“…About that.”

Seon-woo’s eyes sparkled.

He had actually prepared something for that very purpose.

“Wait just a moment. I have something to get from my car.”

Seon-woo said that and left the practice room before Si-hun could even respond.

What was he suddenly going to bring? Si-hun, who had been chuckling, couldn’t help but have his expression freeze when he saw Seon-woo return.

Seon-woo was carrying a large box in his arms.

The problem was the contents inside that box.

“What is all this…?”

“I figured the best way to understand Yi Bang-won is to study history, right? So I brought everything from notes I organized while studying liberal arts subjects in the past, to related books and papers!”

Seon-woo’s eyes sparkled.

He had a proud expression as if the box in his arms was some kind of treasure.

“With this much, there’d be no end to reading even if we read every single day!”

“…Seon-woo.”

“Yes?”

Si-hun asked with genuine admiration.

“Are you a lunatic?”

* * *

Si-hun seemed to briefly participate in Seon-woo’s historical text study, but eventually gave up and left.

“The King Woo in my head is becoming boring…!”

That was the last thing he said.

Studying was good, but approaching King Woo this way would actually kill the flavor.

It wasn’t that Seon-woo couldn’t understand Si-hun’s feelings.

The historical texts definitely felt more rigid compared to the scripts they usually read.

But for Seon-woo, he had no choice but to cling to these historical texts.

That was because [The Traitor]’s script… had no lines.

To be precise, the lines were vaguely there.

For example,

Yi Bang-won: (Says he came to save them.)

It was like that.

A script format he’d never seen before in his life.

But this was said to be Seo Tae-rok’s characteristic. He doesn’t write those lines definitively until casting is complete.

He checks the synchronization between actor and role, then writes the lines afterward to create something more perfect.

Anyway, for that reason, Seon-woo needed to get closer to Yi Bang-won through historical texts.

And actually, this wasn’t as boring as he’d thought.

That was because, as he looked at Yi Bang-won’s actions recorded in history… at some point, color orbs appeared.

‘…I didn’t expect color orbs to appear from historical texts.’

For Seon-woo, this was fortunate.

He could glimpse Yi Bang-won’s more realistic colors.

The more he studied Yi Bang-won, the harder he was to understand.

Sometimes he seemed like someone who could abandon everything for power, and sometimes he seemed like a humane person trying to uphold principles no matter what.

Just looking at what Yi Bang-won said before killing Jeong Mong-ju, recorded in the Taejo Sillok, showed this.

—Father will not listen to my words, but Mong-ju cannot be left alive, so I shall take responsibility for that sin.

Why did Yi Bang-won say such things?

At that time, Lee Seong-gye’s faction was certainly in crisis. Jeong Mong-ju was petitioning King Gongyang to execute officials under Lee Seong-gye including Jeong Do-jeon, and King Gongyang couldn’t follow that petition because he feared Lee Seong-gye.

But it was a situation where a royal command to behead them immediately wouldn’t be strange.

Nevertheless, Lee Seong-gye didn’t try to deal with Jeong Mong-ju because of his symbolic nature. Since most of the Neo-Confucian scholars respected Jeong Mong-ju, he thought that staining his hands with such a person’s blood would make it impossible to establish the legitimacy of the new dynasty.

However, Yi Bang-won didn’t overlook Jeong Mong-ju’s danger.

In a way, it might mean he couldn’t accept even the slightest threat. Rather than having his survival threatened for legitimacy, such intangible values… he would find a sure way out even if it meant earning his father’s hatred.

…But here, a part that didn’t make sense emerged.

That was during the Wihwado retreat, Yi Bang-won quickly rescued his stepmother Gang-ssi and her children, his half-siblings, from Gaegyeong.

‘Why?’

Seon-woo couldn’t understand.

If Yi Bang-won truly had a personality that couldn’t tolerate threats, wouldn’t it have been better to let them die there?

Had he not thought that they would become political enemies?

Or did he do it because Queen Sindeok’s background was immediately necessary for founding Joseon?

Actually, such things were unknowable unless you asked Yi Bang-won directly.

Nevertheless, Seon-woo kept thinking. The more this thinking continued, the more he felt like he was getting a little closer to Yi Bang-won.

He had to know.

What kind of person Yi Bang-won was.

What it felt like to be born as a traitor’s son and live to destroy the country that gave birth to him.

What it was like to stain his hands with countless blood for the sole reason of survival, and eventually take the lives of his young half-siblings.

‘It’s not beautiful.’

That was Seon-woo’s first impression.

The more he learned, the more devastated Yi Bang-won’s inner state was. In some ways, it was even more devastated than I-mu-gi, who despised himself.

Desert.

Yes. It was like a desert inside.

In that desert, all Yi Bang-won could chase was the mirage of an oasis.

What was visible in Yi Bang-won’s mirage?

Was it Joseon?

Was it the throne?

‘So this is the appeal of historical dramas.’

Seon-woo thought he understood why certain actors always insisted on historical dramas.

It was a completely different feeling from filming fiction. The entire process of tracing the footsteps of a real person and recreating them in his own way was incredibly appealing.

And watching such Seon-woo,

“I’ve seen many perverts, lunatics, and monsters so far…”

Si-hun clicked his tongue.

“You’re the best.”

“I don’t want to hear that from you, senior.”

Seon-woo, who had become quite comfortable with Si-hun by now, looked at him with a disgruntled expression.

“At least I’m not the type to go homeless for a role.”

“No way. If a role like that came up, you’d grab a cardboard box and head straight to Seoul Station, wouldn’t you?”

“No, I wouldn’t. What do you take me for…?”

Seon-woo was about to shake his head but paused for a moment.

For an instant, he thought it might actually be interesting. But still, Seon-woo finished shaking his head.

“I don’t do dangerous things like that.”

“It was dangerous. I even got punched by some guys there when I said I had no money.”

“…Right. I definitely won’t go homeless.”

No matter how he thought about it, that seemed like a bad idea.

But watching Seon-woo like this, Si-hun frowned.

“What’s the point of not going homeless? You’re here every other day, holed up reading books all the time. I’ve never seen anyone prepare for acting like this. Are you working on a doctoral degree or something?”

“Shouldn’t preparing like I’m working on a doctoral degree lead to better acting?”

“You sure know how to talk.”

Si-hun chuckled.

Seon-woo turned his attention back to the paper. It was titled ‘When Was Taejong Born: The Death of Jeong Mong-ju and Yi Bang-won’s Political Autonomy.’ It wasn’t a particularly attractive title, but the content was quite interesting.

It argued that Jeong Mong-ju’s death became the catalyst for Yi Bang-won to first rebel against Lee Seong-gye, and this became the foundation for Yi Bang-won to form an independent faction rather than being part of the founding myth that Lee Seong-gye was building.

“…If this content is correct, it means Yi Bang-won was just moving like a mere component until then. But by killing Jeong Mong-ju, he finally awakened. In a way, it might have been his fall from grace.”

“Hmm. Which way do you want to take it? Fall from grace? Or awakening?”

“That’s the question.”

Seon-woo wore a slight smile.

His expression suggested he was already enjoying just weighing those two options.

“Things are starting to come together. How I should express Yi Bang-won. What kind of person my Yi Bang-won is.”

“…Hmm.”

Si-hun thought to himself.

Seon-woo’s Yi Bang-won would definitely be worth watching.

In fact, the Yi Bang-won acting that Seon-woo had shown during practice sessions was quite appealing even from Si-hun’s perspective.

That didn’t mean he acted well.

That was just basic. Grasping emotional lines properly was a fundamental quality an actor should have.

A professional actor should aim for what comes next.

What kind of character am I portraying?

Why should viewers focus on that character, why should they be captivated by them… you need to be able to explain that.

And Seon-woo was definitely an exceptionally skilled actor when it came to constructing such characters.

A genius? He didn’t want to describe him with such a clichéd word.

Rather than genius, he was more like…

‘A pervert.’

Right. The word pervert fit much better.

As a senior pervert watching a junior pervert, Si-hun felt proud in various ways. It wasn’t like he had taught or raised him, but just watching was somehow satisfying.

“Speaking of which, senior. Come here for a moment. I found something really interesting this time.”

“…Huh?”

“Look at this paper. It’s from the Department of Psychiatry analyzing King Woo’s psychological state. It’s in English, so I translated just the parts I thought would be interesting.”

“Oh, okay. Th-thanks.”

“And this is a paper investigating the correlation between symptoms of tyrants worldwide and the political and social situations of their times. This one’s written in Korean, so you can just read it as is!”

“Uh… this one’s pretty thick?”

“No, it’s not. The paper is just thick, but it’s only 25 pages! Once you start reading it, you’ll get through it quickly!”

“Uh, uhh…”

Ah, I take back what I said about feeling satisfied.

This guy… is kind of scary!

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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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