Chapter 148: The boundary between liking and not liking.
It was a pitch-black room.
Yu Myeong was led into a dark space where a lamp on one side struck the actor at an angle, while a softer fill light from the opposite side gently eased the shadows.
[When you were acting, I thought you were a native speaker... but apparently not?]
[Nope. I came over here specifically for this audition.]
[Your English is already excellent, of course, but I can still tell you're a foreigner. Yet when you were acting, I honestly couldn't. Did you practice that consciously, paying attention to pronunciation and intonation? That's incredible!]
Yu Myeong merely smiled at Susan's misunderstanding without answering.
She immediately moved on to discussing the performance he had just given.
[Wow... that performance was really amazing. I've seen plenty of actor auditions while working as a casting director, but you're the first person I've ever seen perform Truman.]
The sharp-featured woman openly displayed her goodwill as she offered Yu Myeong a chair.
The camera was already rolling.
There were no other staff members in the room.
A woman with a face that naturally lowered people's guard.
Low lighting.
What kind of interview was this supposed to be?
[Surely that wasn't improvised? I honestly can't believe it was.]
[It wasn't improvised. It was one of the pieces I prepared.]
[Now I'm curious about the others. Then why did you choose The Truman Show of all things from your prepared repertoire?]
This was where he needed to answer carefully.
It was still early 2007. Reality shows were largely unfamiliar in Korea, but Yu Myeong had lived through an era in the Original World where countless reality programs had exploded in popularity, surpassed their peak, and eventually faded away.
One characteristic of audition programs:
Contestants who were too boring disappeared without anyone noticing.
Contestants who tried too hard to stand out became villains and were publicly torn apart.
That was probably why they had created an interview environment like this.
A soft, comfortable atmosphere.
A woman who looked incapable of harming anyone.
A setup designed to capture a moment of carelessness.
Whether it was a reckless remark, arrogance, a hidden scandal, or simply a timid and pathetic display of insecurity—
everything had been meticulously arranged to extract some delicious piece of bait that could drive ratings.
[Because it was the perfect stage.]
[The perfect stage? Every actor I interviewed before you complained. They said it was a complete disaster, that the environment was too distracting to focus on acting... but for you, it was the perfect stage?]
What he needed was a comment provocative enough to sound slightly arrogant.
And enough logic to make people accept it.
Since this was America rather than Korea, confidence carried more weight than humility.
[In a normal audition, you can't build a custom set for every applicant, so you create an environment of nothingness. The location might be a conference room or a studio, but either way, the background is left empty so actors can use their performance to make the audience imagine the setting.]
Susan listened quietly.
His voice settled naturally into the ear.
[But this assignment wasn't empty. It was completely full. Another way to describe it is that we were forced to act on the wrong set. If you tried to play a busy city dweller against a backdrop of peaceful countryside scenery, it would naturally feel awkward. That's why everyone struggled several times more than usual.]
Nodding as though she agreed, Susan suddenly let out an exclamation.
[That's why it was The Truman Show?]
[Yes. An environment where countless people are watching me. And of all those people, every single one happens to be an actor. Among countless actors, there is only one person living a life instead of performing one.]
The hairs on her arms rose.
It felt as though she were watching a brilliant performance even now.
His explanation had a beginning, a middle, and an end.
[That situation overlapped with The Truman Show in many ways. It allowed me to immerse myself more deeply, and I think it made the performance more enjoyable for the audience as well.]
[Wow... you made that judgment in such a short moment...? Then did you prepare for other possible assignments too?]
[I prepared the performance I could show best in an ordinary environment, along with several possibilities for unusual circumstances like this.]
[S-several?]
[I came up with roughly twenty-two situations that I thought might occur.]
Susan's jaw dropped.
For quite a while, she couldn't even ask her next question.
Meanwhile, the camera continued blinking its blue light and faithfully doing its job.
"Jesus of Nazareth."
"What?"
"Jesus on Golgotha. You know, the one nailed to the cross."
Chomp chomp—
As Hyo Jun enthusiastically stuffed himself with the grilled pork belly Yu Seok had personally cooked at the lodging, Yu Seok and Yu Myeong exchanged dumbfounded looks after hearing what role he had performed.
"Come on, it's perfect. Surrounded by hostile gazes that look like they want to devour you, and yet you're all, 'I shall guide you with love.' Whew, the aura was insane."
"Uh... you performed Jesus for the assignment?"
"Yep."
While Yu Seok was simply bewildered, Yu Myeong was genuinely surprised.
The young man, who barely had any acting experience, had arrived at the same conclusion he had.
The idea of tailoring a performance to the environment.
While most actors had been preoccupied with figuring out how to perform whatever they had prepared, this kid had looked at the broader situation.
And probably...
"If it was Jesus on Golgotha... then it must have been improvised?"
"Yep. I read the Bible pretty diligently when I was younger. 'Father, let this suffering pass from me. Yet not my will, but Yours be done.' When I delivered that line, people standing nearby actually cried. Hehe."
Quick thinking.
A broad perspective.
And the audacity to choose a religious figure like Jesus without hesitation.
Yu Myeong finally understood why Yu Seok had repeatedly called him a genius.
Without agonizing over it.
Without grinding himself down through relentless practice.
He had come up with that idea naturally, carried it out fearlessly, and passed.
If that wasn't genius, what was?
And he could also understand why Yu Seok had been unable to let go of Hyo Jun for four years despite the shortcomings in his attitude.
"Hyung, I did well, right?"
"It was a good choice."
"Yu Myeong! What do you mean, a good choice? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to touch a religious figure? Hyo Jun, honestly, how could you be so reckless—"
"The fact that he managed to create a performance that memorable on the spot and turn it into a successful result is impressive."
At Yu Myeong's calm but unmistakably °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° sincere praise, Hyo Jun's face immediately broke into a grin.
But Yu Seok tilted his head slightly.
As expected, Yu Myeong was a little cold when it came to Hyo Jun.
Praise was praise, certainly, but it felt like the kind of praise he would give a stranger who had nothing to do with him.
"By the way, what keywords did your group get for the second preliminary round?"
"Hmm... the prop was a doll, and the emotions were joy, sadness, and fear."
The previous day, the successful applicants had been notified of their second assignment.
The second preliminary round would be conducted over five days.
A free-performance task judged by a panel of three evaluators.
However, each group had received a different assignment.
Yu Myeong's group had been instructed to use a doll as a prop while expressing the emotions of joy, sadness, and fear.
They were free to use either an existing script or an original one.
Upon hearing that, Hyo Jun spoke up.
"Wow, those are amazing keywords! The moment I hear them, a performance idea immediately pops into my head."
"Hyo Jun—"
Ignoring Yu Seok's attempt to stop him, the excited Hyo Jun continued.
"Most people will probably do something from Child's Play. No way you'd go with something that easy, right? What are you planning to do? If you haven't decided yet, I just thought of an idea—"
"Mr. Hyo Jun."
"Huh?"
Yu Myeong interrupted him.
"We're competitors now, aren't we? I don't think we're in a position to be exchanging ideas like this."
"Come on, you're so rigid. We're from the same agency. Even if we compete in the finals, helping each other during the preliminaries is fi—"
"I never asked for help. So if you're insisting on helping anyway, isn't that interference rather than help?"
His expression never hardened.
He wore the same gentle smile he used when offering praise.
Yet the line he drew between them was unmistakable.
Hyo Jun pouted, then eventually stomped off to his room and slammed the door behind him.
Once again sensing something subtle, Yu Seok thought for a moment before asking,
"Yu Myeong... do you dislike Hyo Jun by any chance?"
"I don't dislike him. That doesn't mean I particularly like him either. If I had to describe him, I'd say he's a coworker I have no intention of making a special effort to become close with."
"Hmm... it feels like you dislike him. He definitely made a mistake just now, but even before that, I got the feeling you treated him differently from other people. Is it because he isn't serious about acting?"
Yu Seok's question struck directly at the issue.
Yu Myeong answered without hesitation.
"If I hated actors who don't put in effort, I'd have to hate an awful lot of people. Plenty of actors simply perform the roles they're given without any particular passion. Everyone has their own way of living. How could I demand that every person devote their life to acting?"
"..."
"That said, I do like actors who give their all. Actors who stake everything on it. When I meet people like that, I want to act alongside them. I feel like helping them somehow."
Ryu Shin.
Seol Su Yeon.
Yoon Han Seong.
Lee Sun Ha.
Cha Ha Rin.
Most of the people who had received Yu Myeong's goodwill belonged to that category.
As a result, Yu Seok rarely had the opportunity to see this colder side of him.
"I don't dislike actors who aren't like that. But I don't particularly like them either."
Yet Yu Myeong described it simply as the boundary between liking and not liking.
Watching the way he drew that line with such precision, Yu Seok found himself thinking:
I never want to end up outside that line.
And for Hyo Jun, who stood beyond it and would one day compete against Yu Myeong, Yu Seok silently offered a small measure of sympathy.
Hope you survive it.
"Yu Myeong!"
"Hello, Team Leader."
Susan, who had become noticeably friendlier since the interview, spotted him first and greeted him enthusiastically.
While exchanging greetings with her, Yu Myeong glanced inside the studio.
There didn't seem to be many seats.
Noticing his gaze, Susan explained.
"This is California Preliminary Round Two, Group One. Forty people."
"Ah... how many people were eliminated in the first round?"
"There were about five thousand applicants in the California region, right? Only a hundred ninety-eight passed the first round. About twenty-five to one. Then we split those hundred ninety-eight into five groups of roughly forty and evaluate one group per day."
"I see."
If each participant spent ten minutes being evaluated, forty people meant four hundred minutes.
Adding transition time and other delays, evaluating just forty people would take nearly an entire day.
"Looks like there are seats inside the studio. Does that mean applicants can watch each other's performances?"
"That's right. We need reactions from competitors too. Besides, we're announcing the results today anyway."
So the results would be revealed the same day.
That suited Yu Myeong perfectly.
Watching how other people interpreted the same assignment could be a valuable learning experience.
"It's a shame I can't watch live. I have to interview the people coming out of the other studios. Good luck. Do well!"
"Thank you!"
Entering the studio energetically, Yu Myeong found the seat marked with his name among the still mostly empty applicant section and sat down.
As he mentally reviewed the assignment one last time—
"Um... excuse me."
The owner of the seat beside him had arrived.
Yu Myeong quickly pulled in his legs to make room.
Then he glanced over absentmindedly—
And froze.
'W-what?!'
Kai Nunen.
The star of Missing Child, the American drama that would air seven years later.
A phenomenon so successful it would run for five seasons.
And right now, with a face that still looked almost boyish, he was sitting beside him.
Kai was on Casting Boat...?
Even though Casting Boat became a massive hit, it was never officially imported into Korea during this period.
Only pirated files and scattered clips circulated online.
As a result, Yu Myeong had never known Kai Nunen had appeared on the program.
"Uh... h-hello?"
His heart pounding, Yu Myeong hid his excitement as a fan and greeted him.
"Oh! H-hi! Thanks for saying hello. I'm really nervous."
"I heard outside that we'll be watching auditions all day. Since we'll probably be sitting next to each other the whole time, I thought we should introduce ourselves. I'm Shin Yu Myeong."
"Ah! I'm Kai Nunen! Let's have lunch together later. Hehe."
It really was him.
There was a four-year age gap between them.
That meant Kai was twenty-three in Korean age right now.
Twenty-one, maybe twenty-two, by local standards.
And yet his eyes were astonishingly pure.
Yu Myeong found himself quietly moved as he looked at the angelically beautiful features framed by dark skin and those impossibly clear blue eyes.
I'm really glad I came here.
Meeting Natalie Kassen had been surprising enough.
But sitting beside the male lead of one of his favorite television dramas as an equal—
that feeling was impossible to put into words.
For the first time, he truly felt like a real actor.
And then—
"Everyone in Preliminary Round Two, Group One, please take your seats. The judges will be entering shortly."
At last,
the second preliminary round had begun.