Become a Star

It was a sunny day and the sky was clear blue on the first day of filming for Glooming Day. On the contrary, the atmosphere was extremely gloomy and melancholic.

The reason behind it was the nonchalant attitudes of Kwon Sung-Min and Song Jae-Hee. They were the actor and actress taking on the leading roles of Park Ji-Hyuk and Na Mi-Yeon respectively. Despite being only in their twenties, both were known to be talented at acting. The movie and drama scripts sent to their agencies had been piling up so much that it was impossible for them to have chosen this movie on their own accord. Since the movie was going to be a flop anyway, they did not even try to hide their intentions of doing a sloppy job and calling it a day.

“If that’s how you want to act, then just go home.”

However, Director Choi Yi-Geon was different. As much as he did not want to direct a movie that he was obligated to, it was still going to be something that would be credited to his name. He was not shameless enough to show the world substandard work.

“I knew that both of you were doing this half-heartedly during the table read, but I didn’t know that you would be the same when the camera was rolling. I’ll take full responsibility, so Kwon Sung-Min and Song Jae-Hee, get off the set. What kind of actors are you?! This is bullshit.”

The young director in his mid-thirties was a handsome, intelligent-looking man. Incongruent with his good looks, which were good enough for him to become an actor if he wanted, Choi Yi-Geon's biting remarks were so harsh that nobody dared to say anything in response. He had not intervened during the two table reads before the first day of shooting and merely casually observed them. The smile on his face as he told Song Jae-Hee to act out her character the way she wanted had even made her blush.

As he used to study abroad, he had only directed two movies thus far. However, both movies were masterpieces that had accrued more than five million viewers each. Five million might not seem much in an era with several movies that accounted for over ten million viewers every year, but what mattered was the genre of the film.

Director Choi Yi-Geon’s debut film had been a documentary about the story of an old monk and a child monk who lived in a temple. The old monk was preparing for his impending death, and had to teach the young monk about the world as the latter would eventually be left to live alone. The innocent young monk was still a child, rather than a religious person who practiced asceticism. Nevertheless, it had been more of a calm and beautiful story than a sad one.

The second movie had been one centered on family. It revolved around a mother and a son. The woman had given birth to a child as a single mother and got married eventually, while hiding her past. Several years later, her child, whom she had previously put up for adoption, went to look for her. Based on the plot itself, one would have expected it to be a ‘makjang’ drama, but it was in fact a story about the psychological wounds of an abandoned child, and the pains of a woman who had no choice but to abandon her child. [1] In the movie, the son left without telling his mother he was her son because he did not want to hurt anybody, and the mother turned her back on her son despite knowing who he was.

The calm flow of the storyline, without revenge or remorse, had left the viewers experiencing an indescribable pain in their hearts. The very fact that it had amassed more than five million viewers despite having deviated completely from standard storylines showed that Choi Yi-Geon was very good at doing his job as a director. Most of all, it was his ability to capture aesthetically pleasing visuals, as well as his understated editing skills, that had caused his talent to be greatly recognized. His amazing track record had led him to be chosen as the director of Glooming Day.

Woo-Jin’s enthusiasm was also dampened by the cast’s lack of motivation before the shoot. Like the other actors, he wanted to do the scenes half-heartedly and get them over with. However, when the director told the main leads off, that was when he realized his mistake.

He had not chosen to go into acting because he wanted to be a celebrity. He liked acting as much as he liked singing. He found it fun and exciting to analyze the characters, and act out or express the written lines in the direction he deemed fit. Doing so made him feel like a god, creating the axis of a new world.

However, it had not been that long since he had started acting, and yet he had already lost sight of his aspirations, and was even about to destroy them. Thinking about that made his face turn red all of a sudden.

“If there’s anybody here trying to act as they did, I’m giving you the chance to leave now!”

Choi Yi-Geon’s cold warning this time hit Woo-Jin hard. Although Woo-Jin had no lines, he had the most number of scenes, other than the male and female leads. As soon as the director shot him a gaze, Woo-Jin shook his head with all his might. The gaze seemed to warn him that he would be thrown out as well if he could not deliver a good performance as ‘Cha Hyun-Seung’, the character that shared as much presence and importance as the leading characters.

Choi Yi-Geon stared at Woo-Jin with his bleary eyes for quite some time before shifting his gaze to the other people. Fortunately, Woo-Jin was given a chance without having to justify himself, as they had not shot Cha Hyun-Seung’s scenes.

“Calm down, sir,” someone began.

As the matter started to get out of hand, the staff members and the main leads’ managers stepped in and tried to pacify Choi Yi-Geon, asking for his understanding.

“Jae-Hee is definitely not that kind of person. It’s just that she hasn’t adapted herself to this role yet, so please try to understand.”

“Sung-Min only seemed that way because he was exhausted from a variety show shooting, which ended late into the night. It’s absolutely not because he’s doing it half-heartedly.”

Woo-Jin had only signed his contract three weeks ago, but the main leads had already signed their contract two months ago. It did not make any sense for them to have had insufficient time to analyze their characters. Furthermore, Kwon Sung-Min had finished his previous shoot at 1 a.m., and it was now 10 a.m. Additionally, Woo-Jin had been on set since 6 a.m., and would be more exhausted than Kwon Sung-Min who had arrived only an hour ago. Yet, such details were not important in this situation.

In any case, the concluding fact was that all the actors that had been cast for this movie had to take part in it. Nobody here had the supreme power to make any decisions. Unless they could come up with a better choice that would satisfy the Supreme Witch even more, they knew that they could not overstep their authority.

However, the director was the person with the most power among them. Firstly, he had the full support of the Supreme Witch, and had been entrusted with the authority and autonomy to shoot the movie freely without any inconvenience. Even though he did not have the power to change the main leads, he could intimidate them. Moreover, if the director threw a fit because the actors did a bad job, thus delaying the shoot, those actors would be at a disadvantage. The pendulum of power had already swung to one side, and so the actors had no choice but to listen to Choi Yi-Geon.

“When I told you that you were free to do whatever you wanted, it meant I would fully believe and follow your interpretation of the role you were given. I didn’t mean that you were allowed to act half-heartedly.”

After Choi Yi-Geon had cooled off to a certain extent, it seemed as though his fiery anger had suddenly vanished. He continued speaking in a polite manner with a smile. Woo-Jin was not the only person who thought that Choi Yi-Geon would make a good actor. Unwillingness were written on most of the people’s faces.

“I’ll do my best to portray the story told by all of you in the most beautiful way possible. So, make sure that you give me the most beautiful acting you’re able to express to the best of your abilities, understood? And so, I’ll give you two hours to study your characters in depth and come back here after that.”

With a beautiful smile, Choi Yi-Geon casually told them not to come back at all if they were not confident. They would later find out that he was an aesthete who was excessively obsessed with beauty and art. It explained why his movies had beautiful visuals. There was only one thing Choi Yi-Geon wanted from the actors—he wanted them to be beautiful.

Additionally, he explained that the beauty of an actor was measured by how well their acting fit the situation they were in for a particular scene, and whether it was portrayed accurately or not. It had nothing to do with their physical appearances. In a way, an aesthete like Choi Yi-Geon could not tolerate bad acting that ruined the screen.

After hearing what Director Choi Yi-Geon said about the two-hour grace period, the actors hastily left their seats. The leading actors shared an understanding gaze with each other before heading in different directions. As a young man and woman, they were busy trying to avoid each other as much as possible, as if they were afraid of starting a scandal.

Meanwhile, Woo-Jin had been thinking about where he should go, as he looked around the set that had been turned into a college department room. It was the place where Woo-Jin would spend the most amount of time shooting in; it was also a place that could be called ‘Cha Hyun-Seung’s space’. It seemed to be the most appropriate place to think about Cha Hyun-Seung’s character.

Woo-Jin pulled a chair over and sat down. He stared out of the window blankly. They had rented an entire well-furnished model home and used it as the set, as if to prove CEO Choi’s extensive support. It was not because the place was fancy and luxurious; but rather, it would cost them more money to prepare an accurate and realistic set than to use any random expensive set that looked fancy.

Just by looking at it, he could tell that a lot of research had gone into setting the place up, and that the staff had put in a lot of effort into the set. Seeing as the actors had previously not put any effort into the acting despite being in a place like this, it was understandable why Director Choi Yi-Geon got angry.

Although it was a model home, there was a window in the department room. Perhaps it was previously used as an office by employees from an architecture firm. Cha Hyun-Seung often looked down at Park Ji-Hyuk and Na Mi-Yeon from that window. He could see trees with green leaves, as well as a well-decorated flower bed, beyond the window. What would Cha Hyun-Seung be thinking of when he looked at the couple passing through the area?

Woo-Jin felt a sense of longing, as well as an inferiority complex, after reading the script.

Park Ji-Hyuk was the son of an extremely wealthy family, even though he was not the heir of the conglomerate. On the other hand, Na Mi-Yeon was born and raised in an ordinary family, despite having earned the love of that wealthy son. Somehow, both of them had ended up falling in love with one another.

Cha Hyun-Seung had had been observing them, but was unable to confess his feelings for Na Mi-Yeon. Park Ji-Hyuk was not someone Cha Hyun-Seung could match up against. Furthermore, Cha Hyun-Seung suffered from a severe inferiority complex as he compared himself to Park Ji-Hyuk, and ended up drowning himself in self-doubt. Thus, he was unable to confess his feelings to Na Mi-Yeon in front of Park Ji-Hyuk. He knew he was going to be rejected anyway.

The love story between two people from different social classes, as well as the existence of a second male lead with a crush on the female lead while envying them from afar, was as clichéd as it could get. Moreover, the second lead was but a means to make the male lead become more prominent. He could not shine at all. That was the limitation of Cha Hyun-Seung’s character.

Woo-Jin could understand Cha Hyun-Seung’s feelings, but for some reason, he did not want to act according to the script. Just thinking about how he had to look at the couple amid the depressing and gloomy aura that he gave off gave him goosebumps. More importantly, if he were to act according to the script, the flow of the movie would be very predictable.

For romance comedies, and especially so in the case of the purely romantic genre, the scriptwriters had a tendency to force their viewers to feel touched and emotional pain for the most part via the excessive emotions felt by the characters. Glooming Day did not deviate too much from this path – Cha Hyun-Seung had to struggle and suffer due to unrequited love.

No matter how Woo-Jin looked at it, it didn’t sit right with him for Cha Hyun-Seung to observe the couple while not doing anything, and feel pained as though he was abandoned. Having Cha Hyun-Seung being depressed and pathetic to the very end, it felt as if the scriptwriter was forcing the viewers to be equally depressed. It also seemed that the scriptwriter wanted to use Cha Hyun-Seung as a tool to make the viewers empathize with the beautiful couple, and have them feel both envy and sorry for the pair of lovers.

Yet, in Woo-Jin’s opinion, the failure of this film was the existence of Cha Hyun-Seung. Contrary to the scriptwriter’s intentions, the audience was more likely to think of Cha Hyun-Seung as a pathetic stalker, rather than empathize with him. He was too immersed in his own emotions, making it difficult for them to empathize with him, and even more difficult to sympathize with. However, his young and crazy unrequited love had similarities with Death Hill’s A. No, if that was the case, Glooming Day’s genre could then be classified as a ‘horror thriller’. Without a single line, it was difficult for him to portray Cha Hyun-Seung accurately.

1. ‘Makjang’ dramas are dramas with ridiculous, extreme, and unrealistic plots. <i class="far fa-hand-point-left">