If I Don’t Earn 1 Trillion Won, My Regression Ends - Chapter 62
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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 62
“If there’s anything, tell me now… I need to call the production company. They earnestly begged me to let them know in advance before you cause any trouble…”
‘It seems like this hasn’t been going on for just a day or two.’
Was it 【Ilwol Films】?
I think that was the name.
I felt deeply sorry for the production company employees whose faces I didn’t even know. He’s not just any ordinary boss.
Besides, it sounds nice to call it a production company, but it’s practically Haemun’s personal company…
The trauma from my shitty job that I had forgotten came rushing back hard.
When I unconsciously looked at him with reproachful eyes, reacting from my very soul, Director Haemun chuckled and buried his back into the sofa.
“Fine~ If you want to curse, go ahead and curse~ An actor can watch movies with their rivals in them.”
“Rival?”
No, more than that-
“Actor?”
“Yeah. What else would you be if not an actor?”
“…”
It’s true that I’ve been studying hard at Yewon for half a year.
But initially, I only started semi-forcibly because of my deal with Bae Seo-nyeok, and even now, it’s half because of my ulterior motive to score points with Bae Seo-nyeok.
There are quite a few things that make me hesitant to introduce myself as an actor.
Of course, it would be a lie to say I didn’t find it fun.
If I really had no interest in this field, in acting, I wouldn’t have studied so hard.
I was one of the students with the highest practice room attendance at Yewon.
‘But still…’
Can I really go down this path?
Seosing-a before the regression was such an ordinary person, wasn’t she?
The director’s expression became puzzled at my hesitation.
“What’s wrong? Kim Yeo-yeong said you even finished emotional training? You completed voice training, pronunciation correction, and learned how to put emotion into lines. What more do you need?”
“H-how do you know that?!”
Kim Yeo-yeong is the name of the teacher in charge of me and Bae Tae-ak at Yewon.
Director Haemun casually stirred his parfait glass.
“I’m the one who sent Kim Yeo-yeong to teach you the basics, so why wouldn’t I know? Didn’t Bae Seo-nyeok tell you?”
“He didn’t…”
“Was he trying to surprise you? Tsk tsk, that guy’s always like that. He loves backstabbing people like that. You can tell he’s someone who went to school in Japan. You be careful too. What, so he didn’t tell you that someone was waiting for you either?”
“N-no, he didn’t. Waiting? Who?”
“Me.”
Haemun firmly pointed to himself.
In my bewildered gaze, the most successful film director in all of South Korea spoke.
“Please don’t let that little mermaid princess go astray, don’t let her cause trouble, don’t let her run away, please let her grow up healthy just as she is with that look and that feeling, Buddha God Father please. I’ve been waiting so damn long, offering cold water and praying. All to make you into an actor.”
“…”
“For reference, I have no religion. Don’t tell me you won’t work with me because of religious conflicts. I refuse.”
Haemun rambled on with nonsense, but I felt no sense of reality at all.
The experience with Ham Gyeong-seok was surprising too, but that was Ham Gyeong-seok. How could it be the same as someone who was originally buried in obscurity?
This person was Haemun!
Joy or shock? No. I was just puzzled.
“Why me?”
Haemun answered immediately. Without a moment’s hesitation.
“Because you caught my eye.”
“…That’s all?”
“That’s all?”
As if he had heard something very amusing, Haemun burst into hearty laughter.
“Kid. Listen carefully. I’ll tell you a truth of the film industry.”
“…”
“When a director chooses, that’s all there is to it.”
Reason? None.
Persuasion? None.
Why should I have to do such things?
Movies were the director’s art, a world dominated by the director.
“What do you think is the reason I’ve climbed to this position by releasing a movie every year? Because I want to make my movies my way, the way I want. That’s all. So if I just like you, that’s enough.”
1991 debut work 《Useless》.
1992 《Submission to the Submissive Dog》.
1993 《Cheap Sisters》, 1994 《Blue Momentum》, 1995 《A Thousand Years Later》, 1996 《Doing Things Worth Dying For》.
The director was right.
He really had been releasing works without rest.
And finally became a master.
Just because he wanted to make movies however he pleased. With that single obsession.
“The next work is something I’ve been dying to shoot since I was a beardless kid. It must be perfect, and of course it will be. Bae Seo-nyeok showed up at our house gate every single day for half a year begging me to cast him. You just need to say thank you and come in.”
“I…”
“What, kid. Scared? Worried you’re not qualified?”
He hit the nail on the head and I fell silent.
Director Haemun said if I was that curious, he’d resolve my doubts, and slowly began counting on his fingers.
“I saw a hundred people, but there was no one. I saw a thousand people, but still no one. When I saw ten thousand people, you appeared right before my eyes.”
“…”
“In conclusion, you’re one in ten thousand.”
One in a million.
Is this qualification enough?
「I’m going to send you up to the stars.」
“If you want, you can add more to suit your taste. Aura, charisma, presence, intuition, destiny, whatever. I don’t care. In the end, you caught my eye and out of ten thousand people I only saw you, so I’m going to preserve you as part of my film and pass it down through generations.”
Arrogant. Really arrogant.
Are all these so-called art world directors such monsters?
I felt helplessly overwhelmed.
But a strange emotion stirred in my chest. It felt like some kind of current was flowing through the blood vessels under my skin.
Excellent people always earn others’ admiration.
This shabby-looking man in his thirties before me was the person who had made nineteen-year-old Bae Seo-nyeok, who was nothing but unknown, into Korea’s top star.
His social status, the filmography he had created, the troupe of actors he had discovered and led were proving him moment by moment, and that enormous power overwhelmed me.
Master.
Potential 5 stars.
Destiny power 4 stars.
Connection 5 stars.
“Don’t want to be an actor? Too bad.”
Haemun, the ‘magician’ of Chungmuro, smiled brightly.
“I need to make a movie. I haven’t made one for too long. At this rate, I’ll develop diseases I never had.”
Telling me to look straight into his eyes, he tapped the table in front of me with his finger.
“Leon that you saw earlier. Cruel but interesting, right?”
“…Yeah.”
“Matilda. Amazing, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Write this down. Natalie Portman. At eleven years old, she beat 2000-to-1 odds to become Matilda, and started her first filming right after her twelfth birthday. When I say to make her your rival, I’m not joking, I’m serious.”
“…”
“There are several more. Jodie Foster from 《Taxi Driver》. Anna Paquin from 《The Piano》. Christian Bale from 《Empire of the Sun》. Kirsten Dunst from 《Interview with the Vampire》. Haley Joel Osment from 《The Sixth Sense》.”
They were all names I knew or movie titles I had heard of before.
“They all made their mark in world cinema history when they were young. Is there any reason Korea can’t produce such actors? Why not?”
His words were so grandiose that I was too stunned to laugh, but the young and ambitious director laughed.
He grinned at me, baring his teeth, and pointed at me leisurely.
“You need to be among them.”
I’ll make it happen.
“….”
Then Haemun pulled something out of his pocket.
A small book in pristine condition, completely unlike his shabby fishing jacket…
In other words, it was a script.
Handing it to me, Haemun announced.
“Get ready. Crank-in is February next year. You’ll start when you turn eleven. You’ve learned plenty at the academy during this time. Not enough? Well, that’s not my problem.”
You’ll learn the rest by getting beaten up on set.
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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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