I Acted Once, and Now They Call Me a Genius - Chapter 174

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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 174

The sunlight is hot.

It seemed like just recently, exposing skin to sunlight didn’t bring any particular warmth, so when did summer approach so closely again?

Seo Tae-rok gazed at the sunlight cast on the table in the exact angular shape of the window.

It was summer sunlight. The light intensity was definitely more alive than usual, and the contrast became deeper accordingly.

Everything looked more three-dimensional, and the colors appeared more vivid.

Seo Tae-rok loved summer sunlight.

If he could make a movie that captured that vitality as it was, he thought that alone would make him successful as a director.

‘…What a shame.’

For that reason, not being able to film on a day when such beautiful sunlight was shining down was truly regrettable.

He was now sixty years old. There probably weren’t that many summer days like this left in his life.

A moment of regret flickered in Seo Tae-rok’s eyes.

There were so many stories floating in his mind, filled with beautiful moments and scenes he wanted to show off to anyone… but time was always insufficient.

Seo Tae-rok slowly aligned the scripts and documents lined up on his desk. And at the same time, he opened his mouth.

“Seung-il. What roles are we auditioning today?”

“Ah, yes! We’re scheduled to see King Woo, Yi Bang-won, and Lee Bang-gan.”

He actually already knew.

Still, asking was a kind of habit. By reconfirming the schedule through the assistant director’s mouth like this, he could preview the coming day in advance.

It was one of the habits he’d developed from living his entire life as a director.

Only by doing this could peace of mind come.

Of course, even so, Seo Tae-rok’s mind wasn’t very comfortable today.

‘This damn thing called auditions is getting tiresome.’

Depending on the case, there are directors who like auditions.

They enjoy seeing actors interpret roles in completely different ways than they had imagined through auditions, and the inspiration they receive from that.

But for Seo Tae-rok, such inspirations were nothing but noise.

Noise that made his already overflowing head even more complicated.

Seo Tae-rok didn’t like acting that went beyond his expectations. Of course, sometimes that noise actually painted a better picture… but that wasn’t very common.

Seo Tae-rok chewed gum to refresh his mood.

And that’s when it happened. The assistant director, who had been cautiously watching, carefully opened his mouth.

“Um, Director.”

“What?”

“Well… could you perhaps go a little easier on the actors today?”

“…”

Instead of answering, Seo Tae-rok quietly stared at the assistant director.

The assistant director was startled and waved his hands dismissively.

“Ah, this isn’t what I’m trying to say…! The casting director said so. Yesterday too, there were tons of complaint calls because you made Song Chae-bin cry. So…”

“Does going easy mean doing it half-heartedly?”

“No, no! I didn’t want to tell you to do it half-heartedly… I’m sorry. I’ll handle it myself.”

Seo Tae-rok didn’t scold the assistant director further.

He already knew to some extent why such words came up.

It wasn’t just during auditions.

When filming, Seo Tae-rok was the type to demand retakes over and over when he felt noise from an actor’s performance. He had actually demanded 100 retakes once.

It was unavoidable. As a director, if he ignored such minor signals, the work would ultimately collapse.

That was why he had no choice but to make Song Chae-bin cry yesterday.

A bit of noise kept bothering his eyes, and he kept having lingering thoughts that maybe he could eliminate that noise if he pushed just a little more.

And actually, that noise did disappear at the end.

Of course, Seo Tae-rok didn’t do this to every actor.

If there was an actor who created unpleasant noise to the point where there was no need to look deeper, he could just send them away without bothering to see their acting again.

Yes. Just like now.

“Thank you for your time.”

Seo Tae-rok suppressed the rising displeasure and opened his mouth.

In front of him, the actor who had just performed King Woo was looking at him with a tense face. He had just acted out the scene of hearing the news that Lee Seong-gye had turned his army around.

A scene where, thinking Lee Seong-gye would kill him, he orders the arrest of Lee Seong-gye’s family members in terror.

The interpretation wasn’t bad. The attempt to express anger and fear simultaneously was good, and his acting ability wasn’t bad either.

However, despite all that, what Seo Tae-rok felt when looking at him was only noise.

He tried too many things.

While he didn’t think trying to put something into acting was a bad attitude for an actor, if that ambition was more noticeable than the character’s heart, it was already failed acting.

Seo Tae-rok didn’t give him any particular feedback or ask to see different acting.

There was no need to see more. Only clumsy noise that made him uncomfortable would fill his head further.

Rather than letting his mind get dirtier, it would be better to send him away quickly.

Whether it should be called fortunate, what was at least comforting was that he didn’t need to reach consensus with anyone else in selecting actors.

When Seo Tae-rok held auditions, he didn’t judge together with the casting director or anyone else.

If he accommodated their clumsy opinions, the movie would ultimately collapse too.

So when he saw actors who seemed wrong, full of noise, Seo Tae-rok sent them away immediately.

What he observed carefully while demanding different acting were mainly actors with little noise.

In other words, actors who could show exactly the performance he wanted with just a little more directing.

Of course, there were exceptions to that too.

“Am I crazy, you ask? Haha, my lord. How could I not be? It’s an age that drives one mad. An age where one must go mad. You are the only one on this land who wishes my mind to remain intact.”

Watching Yu Si-hun constantly grinning while being self-deprecating, Seo Tae-rok frowned.

What Si-hun is acting right now is a part not in the script.

It was a process all the actors had gone through. The script didn’t have proper dialogue written out to begin with. To prepare for this, they had no choice but to imagine on their own ‘what would King Woo say?’

And Si-hun said he would act out a scene of lamenting before Choi Young, who was scolding him to come to his senses.

“Come to my senses? If I come to my senses, I’ll only realize that I’m standing on a knife’s edge, so why would I do such a thing? Instead, we… let’s enjoy more with these pretty things! Hahahahahaha!”

Rough.

Si-hun’s acting was truly raw acting itself.

Seo Tae-rok realized. Si-hun was an actor with too strong a personality to be confined in an ensemble drama like [The Traitor]. An actor with enough ability to color [The Traitor]’s story with his own hue in an instant.

A complete bundle of noise.

“Would you also show us the scene where King Woo begs for his life?”

Despite that, the reason he requested another scene was purely out of greed.

Not all noise was worthless. Some noise… even considering that the work might be shaken, there were cases where you wanted to embrace it.

Si-hun’s acting was like that.

In the end, after watching Si-hun’s acting several more times, Seo Tae-rok could only let out a deep sigh of stress again as he sent him away.

‘Actors.’

There were only monster-like people.

Every single one of them had such strong presence that they always seemed to persuade him through their acting alone. ‘Director. That idea is good too, but wouldn’t it be fine to develop it this way?’

If a mediocre actor did that, he could just snort and move on, but when a real deal like that came at him with determination, honestly there was nothing he could do.

When he came to his senses, his heart had already been swayed.

That’s why directors had to be even more stubborn.

If he was pushed back by an actor’s presence without establishing his own perspective, it could lead to losing control of the work.

He must not be persuaded by mediocre acting.

“Director. Now it’s Yi Bang-won’s turn.”

“Mm.”

And at the staff’s following words, Seo Tae-rok nodded heavily.

Yi Bang-won. While there was no unimportant role anywhere, Yi Bang-won needed to be selected with even more care.

[The Traitor] is a two-part series.

The story of the traitor who defied the nation, Lee Seong-gye… and the traitor who defied his father, Yi Bang-won.

While he would remain at the supporting level in Part 1, he was a character who had to fulfill the protagonist’s role in Part 2. As such, they had to select someone more certain than anyone else.

It wasn’t something they could choose simply because someone acted well.

It had to be someone who suited the character of Yi Bang-won better than anyone else, someone who would immediately bring Taejong to mind just by looking at their atmosphere.

In that sense,

“Hello. I’m Kim Seon-woo.”

He knew about Kim Seon-woo.

For a director, actors were no different from brushes to a painter. Where what kind of brush came out. Drawing with this brush produces this kind of line. He was always listening carefully to all such stories.

Naturally, he couldn’t not know about Kim Seon-woo.

The rookie actor who had been standing out the most recently.

But Kim Seon-woo’s first impression was unsatisfactory in many ways.

First of all, his skin was too fair. Even though Yi Bang-won was a scholar, he was also a military commander who would raise armies at the drop of a hat, but Yi Bang-won’s rough aspects couldn’t be felt from him at all.

It was as if noise was already being heard from his appearance.

‘It would have been better if he had auditioned for a different role instead of Yi Bang-won.’

Seo Tae-rok inwardly felt disappointed as he opened his mouth.

In any case, he couldn’t judge before even seeing the acting.

“Please act out the scene that’s most like Yi Bang-won.”

He was also inwardly curious.

What would this young fellow think was most like Yi Bang-won? Which aspect of Yi Bang-won would he try to bring out? Would he portray someone burning with ambition? Would he portray someone who loved Joseon so much he didn’t know what to do? Or would he express rage toward everything blocking his path?

It was none of those.

“I will act out the scene where Bang-won advises Lee Seong-gye to kill Jeong Mong-ju.”

Seon-woo brought out an unexpected scene.

Not the scene of killing Jeong Mong-ju, but the scene of advising to kill him? It was a part Seo Tae-rok hadn’t thought of. That wasn’t the core.

After all, wasn’t the center of that scene Yi Bang-won beating Jeong Mong-ju to death with an iron mace?

But Seo Tae-rok soon understood why Seon-woo thought that scene was ‘most like Yi Bang-won.’

“Father.”

Seon-woo looks at Seo Tae-rok.

As if Seo Tae-rok were Lee Seong-gye… his father.

Meeting that gaze, Seo Tae-rok trembled for a moment. Tremendous noise was already interfering in his head.

‘He’s going to emphasize Yi Bang-won as a son?’

And not just any son.

Seon-woo’s eyes looking at Seo Tae-rok were filled only with admiration and respect.

And because of that, those eyes were trembling more than ever at this moment. Because all the dazzling achievements his father had accomplished were about to crumble overnight.

“Please just say one word. Cut off Po-eun’s head, just that one word will do. With just that one word, we can save Sambong and Ujae too.”

Eyes that seemed to plead.

He had to acknowledge it. That was a look Seo Tae-rok couldn’t even have imagined. Yi Bang-won was a cold-blooded person who took his half-brother’s life. How could he have thought that such a person could have eyes so full of filial piety toward his father?

But at the same time, he understood why Seon-woo had expressed Yi Bang-won that way.

To a son, his father is like the world itself. How much more so if he were a war hero like Lee Seong-gye? To Yi Bang-won, Lee Seong-gye would have been the world.

To Yi Bang-won, Joseon would have been Lee Seong-gye.

The moment he thought that, Seo Tae-rok couldn’t help but grip the pen in his hand so tightly it was about to break.

Noise.

Once again, noise filled his mind.

It was noise on a level that couldn’t even be compared to when he had seen Si-hun’s King Woo before.

Seo Tae-rok instinctively knew. He could never contain that noise. Surely, if he tried to somehow embrace that noise, the entire work might collapse.

Tremendous inspiration was pressing down on him.

Inspiration so massive that it could even change the very ending of the work.

He had to send him away.

There was no need to be more curious. He just had to say he did well and look for a different Yi Bang-won.

That was the right answer.

But,

“…Again.”

Why couldn’t he take his eyes off The Man?

“Could you act it out once more?”

Just why.

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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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