I Acted Once, and Now They Call Me a Genius - Chapter 235

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 235
Kwon Seong-min was fond of Seon-woo.
Of course, Kwon Seong-min cared for all his juniors. He believed that whether an actor performed well or fell short, all of it was reason enough to treasure them. That was simply who Kwon Seong-min was.
And yet Seon-woo drew his gaze in a particular way.
Because Seon-woo was doing well? No—if that were the criterion, he wouldn’t spare a second glance for any of the other newcomer actors.
What mattered most to Kwon Seong-min was one’s attitude toward acting itself.
Precisely: how one approached the craft.
“I want to express Yi Bang-won’s four seasons in Yeokjeok.”
Kwon Seong-min could still hear Seon-woo’s words from when he first shared his interpretation of Yi Bang-won—they remained vivid in his mind.
Expressing seasons through a person.
It was a fascinating perspective.
It wasn’t common to see a character’s inner world described through seasonal metaphor like this, but whenever Seon-woo spoke about a character’s mental landscape, he articulated it as though visual images were materializing before their very eyes.
“You find them now and then. Actors like this.”
Those with developed synesthesia often possessed their own unique philosophy of acting.
Kwon Seong-min himself was one of them. When he pushed his immersion to its extreme—there were moments when he could feel something like the texture, or perhaps the wavelength, of the character he and his scene partner were portraying.
That wavelength differed from actor to actor, and from character to character.
Some felt blurred, others sharp, still others perfectly rounded.
And the wavelength that Seon-woo was emanating this time…
“It’s like lightning.”
Lightning that didn’t scatter or leak anywhere—only striking downward in a fierce, unwavering bolt.
Watching Seon-woo’s Yi Bang-won, that image kept surfacing.
It was like a summer monsoon—rain pouring without end, and through it, lightning cracking down.
And naturally, Kwon Seong-min couldn’t help but savor the moment.
From Seon-woo’s interpretation, he glimpsed potential—latent power that perhaps even Seon-woo himself hadn’t yet recognized.
“The fact that lightning came to mind means there’s formidable energy within Seon-woo’s Yi Bang-won. Depending on how that energy is channeled, the entire mood will shift.”
So then—where should that energy be directed?
Over the past few days, Kwon Seong-min had wrestled with this question constantly. One might think he should only worry about his own performance, but it was unavoidable. He took genuine interest in the acting of those who shared scenes with him.
A film isn’t made alone.
No matter how extraordinary one’s own performance, if your scene partner cannot support you, you cannot move an audience’s heart.
So Kwon Seong-min deliberated.
And the moment he encountered Seon-woo at the film set, he practically kidnapped him on the spot and asked:
“What’s the most important thing to Yi Bang-won right now?”
Yi Bang-won’s energy would ultimately pour toward whatever he valued most.
In truth, Kwon Seong-min already knew what answer he wanted. Yi Bang-won should now think only of Lee Seong-gye—not Joseon.
But then,
“It was Lee Seong-gye.”
Seon-woo’s answer was subtly different from what Kwon Seong-min had anticipated.
It was Lee Seong-gye, true enough—but in the past tense, not the present. Interest flickered across Kwon Seong-min’s face as a matter of course.
“Was?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not following. Up to when was it Lee Seong-gye, and from when does ‘was’ become the operative tense?”
“I think the shift happens from this very moment. When Yi Bang-won finally confronts his father and sees him utterly collapse—that’s when he realizes something. He thinks: I cannot make my father my everything. If I do, when he falls, I will fall with him.”
To avoid falling, and precisely to support his father, Yi Bang-won must step away in this moment. He must move from a world where his father was everything to a world where he is not.
Hearing this interpretation, Kwon Seong-min was breathless.
It was far more compelling than what he’d envisioned. And it wasn’t only about character depth—even from a scene perspective, the emotional arc Seon-woo was proposing was far more luminous.
Kwon Seong-min felt his heart quicken.
He knows he isn’t perfect. It’s common enough for someone to conceive of an even more exquisite composition than what he’s imagined and propose it to him.
But proposals of this caliber rarely came from a junior of Seon-woo’s standing.
Of course his heart would race.
“So even for his father’s sake, Yi Bang-won must release his father… is that it?”
“Yes.”
“Hah—that’s marvelous. All right then. How would you express that emotional arc?”
“Rather than the father faltering while the son supports him, I’d prefer to play it as the father’s weakness awakening the son. But this awakening shouldn’t feel like mere growth—it should feel like accepting the bitter reality of circumstance. When a father who was everything reveals his frailty, the son can’t help but feel that bitterness, right? I think capturing that quiet resignation, that moment when idealization crumbles, would be far more powerful.”
As Kwon Seong-min listened, his eyes grew bright.
Ask Seon-woo one question and he gives you two or three answers. Speaking with him, Kwon Seong-min felt inspiration flowing in endless tides.
The challenge, however, came next.
It was wonderful to receive inspiration. But how to translate that inspiration into performance? That was the greatest task any actor had to face.
“Seon-woo is half method actor.”
One of the method actor’s greatest weaknesses was susceptibility to emotion. And once caught by emotion, the clarity of vision needed to see the scene dissolves. It was fine that Seon-woo was now calculating all of this, but could he truly translate it into honest acting before the camera?
Kwon Seong-min worried—
“Father, you mustn’t lie like that.”
And then he quickly realized his concern had been entirely misplaced.
As if becoming someone else entirely, Seon-woo delivered remarkably composed acting.
It wasn’t method. Far from it—what registered was precision. Seon-woo was clearly controlling every emotion within him, one by one.
“Are you now, looking at me, telling me what should and shouldn’t be?”
Thanks to this, Kwon Seong-min could perform with even greater ease than usual.
He needn’t concern himself with drawing out Seon-woo’s emotions—he could focus entirely on his own acting.
Seon-woo was now giving precise, perfectly calibrated acting rooted in everything they’d discussed.
In this moment, Kwon Seong-min felt the subtle emotional current passing between them—between Lee Seong-gye and Yi Bang-won.
Lee Seong-gye is now utterly shattered.
He believes he is doing what is right—tearing down this rotted Goryeo to establish a realm of benevolent rule where all people might flourish—yet the world brands him a traitor.
Lee Seong-gye is aggrieved.
Angry, bitter, tormented.
He walks a path that has cost him even the life of the great general he so revered—Choi Young. This path is anything but joyful for him; it is arduous and lonely.
And yet he walks it willingly, in the name of his people’s welfare.
So why does the world insist on calling him nothing but a traitor?
“Father will be the parent of a new nation. If Father breaks down like this, where shall the people turn?”
“Don’t turn to anyone! I said I don’t want the throne, even if I could take it! So why—why must I—!”
It’s exhilarating.
Before Yi Bang-won, Lee Seong-gye feels a contradiction of heart.
He is grateful for this son who won’t permit his collapse, and yet also resentful of him. No matter how great a general, no matter how worthy a father—he is only human. And there are moments when all these expectations feel unbearably heavy.
At those moments, the weight becomes too much to bear.
“Jeong Mong-ju… Teacher… am I so hateful to you? Am I so unforgivable? Is Lee Seong-gye truly beyond redemption?”
Lee Seong-gye cries out like a wounded beast.
And Seo Tae-rok, watching all of this unfold…
“…Yes, that’s it.”
Closed his eyes for a moment, overwhelmed by an emotion he couldn’t name.
The thrill running through him was so intense his body trembled. It had been a long time since he’d seen Kwon Seong-min act with such freedom.
Unless his scene partner was somehow delivering exactly what Kwon Seong-min wanted, he usually gave performances with a slightly more controlled feel. But this—
It meant Seon-woo’s acting had satisfied him completely.
And rightly so.
Seo Tae-rok gazed at Seon-woo’s eyes captured on the monitor, admiringly.
Precarious.
It has to be.
Lee Seong-gye is now collapsing endlessly as everything accumulated over the years erupts all at once.
From Yi Bang-won’s perspective, it’s as though the sky itself has fallen. In such a moment—what does a person do?
Seon-woo’s acting seemed to answer that very question.
“He’s searching for a way through.”
In Yi Bang-won’s eyes dwell confusion and terror.
But he refuses to let those emotions consume him. If he falls now, there will be no one left to hold their family, their bloodline—together.
“Yi Bang-won rises as his father falls.”
That was the structure Seo Tae-rok had intended when writing this script.
To portray Yi Bang-won standing, thinking and acting as an individual hero rather than merely as a son—while witnessing the spiritual collapse of Lee Seong-gye.
But what Seon-woo was now weaving into his performance was something more than that.
“…How beautiful.”
Yun-kyeong, watching their performance from nearby, whispered the words without thinking.
Seo Tae-rok agreed. Beautiful—yes, beautiful indeed.
Seon-woo’s eyes now overflow not with anxiety about the circumstances, but with love for his father. Even as he pulls away from his father’s influence, even as he defies his father’s words—it is all, ultimately, an act of rebellion born of love for Lee Seong-gye.
Within that ironic structure, Seo Tae-rok perceived beauty.
A beautiful father and son.
Lee Seong-gye loves his son and thus tries to push him away from the throne’s path; Yi Bang-won loves his father and thus seeks to defy him.
Will audiences be able to understand the beauty inherent in that structure?
Seo Tae-rok asked himself—and soon, with a small chuckle, shook his head.
There was no need to understand it. Seeing these two on screen, viewers would simply feel it, recognize it on their own.
Seo Tae-rok was certain of it.
“…It will cause an uproar.”
He could already see it unfolding.
He could picture what expressions the audience would wear, what thoughts would cross their minds, what feelings would stir in their hearts as they watched this father and son.
They would pour out their hearts entirely.
Because these two were so impossibly, achingly beloved.

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