Become a Star

Right from the beginning, instead of standing in the middle of the hall, Woo-Jin stood slanted by a wall with his arms crossed, with his left shoulder against it.

{How can you be smiling like that?}

It was the same script, but Chae Woo-Jin’s acting was completely different from Park Min’s. Park Min looked at his adoptive mother with a resentful gaze while on the verge of tears. Meanwhile, Chae Woo-Jin’s acting was distinctly different –– he squinted his eyes as they tracked somebody's movements. His eyes were filled with scorn and scrutiny. The way he observed that person was akin to the sharp gaze of an artist, who was scrutinizing their model.

{If you force yourself to smile like that, what would that make us? You have to smile more happily. Only then would we be rewarded for being abandoned.}

At that moment, Woo-Jin’s gaze shifted downwards after feeling someone tugging on his pants. A broad smile crept across Woo-Jin’s face as he looked at the cute and delicate being. He stopped leaning against the wall and knelt down on one knee, seeming as though he was making eye contact with the child.

Woo-Jin was imagining a child standing right before his eyes. The child found Lloyd’s appearance fascinating; he grabbed Lloyd’s white hair with his fingers while saying it was pretty. At that moment, Woo-Jin leaned his head forward, and his body stumbled.

His adoptive mother came running from afar and tried to stop the child, but there were already several strands of white hair in the child’s hand. Woo-jin stared at it for a brief moment before gradually shifting his gaze upwards.

{What a nice child. He’s obedient, and healthy…}

His adoptive mother flinched after hearing Lloyd’s words, and grabbed the child by his shoulders. Lloyd could see the anxiety in those guilty eyes.

{It must be nice.}

Lloyd lost interest in the child; he got up and looked down at his adoptive mother, who was now shorter than him.

{You must be happy to have a healthy child.}

After hearing what Lloyd said, his adoptive mother stammered and said some well-wishing remarks, saying that he looked healthy too. After being certain that she wanted to shake off her guilt, Lloyd stroked the back of his neck and replied in an indifferent tone.

{Yeah, life can be rather tough.}

At that moment, Lloyd looked at his adoptive mother in a way that seemed to suggest he had came to a realization of some sort. He had been smirking and mocking her the entire time, but he suddenly put on a serious demeanor. His dull eyes became lively and started sparkling, like a child waiting for candy.

[You have to live a long and healthy life.}

In my painting. Lloyd muttered softly to himself. He smiled brightly, as though he had found the answer to a difficult question.

Chae Woo-Jin’s version of Lloyd was very different from Do-Ya and Park Min’s. He wasn’t overflowing with emotions, and he had an unexpectedly bright personality. He was exuding the pride he had as a young and promising painter, and his character was very solid and meticulous.

Even while he was talking to his adoptive mother, he was casually patting the head of the child who was clinging onto his leg while scrutinizing his adoptive mother’s every movement with a very sharp and emotionless gaze. There was something about Chae Woo-Jin’s version of Lloyd that was very different from the other actors –– he didn’t express his love or hate to his adoptive mother, nor did he express his lunacy.

After Woo-Jin was done acting out the script, none of the judges asked him any questions as well. Some of them seemed as though they wanted to ask him some questions, but for the sake of being fair to the other actors, they soon shook their heads and let it go. There were still slightly more than 80 actors left at this point. Not only was it arduous to ask each and every one of the applicants questions, they were also afraid that asking only a selected few would cause rumors to spread.

The judges had agreed beforehand not to ask any questions during this round of auditions. In any case, they were only looking at appearance and acting skills in the first round and not the thoughts of the actors while they acted. This would only be evaluated in the final round. Hence, the judges tried their best to suppress their curiosity.

While evaluating an actor’s performance without knowing their intentions might be questionable, the judges had decided to fully evaluate them based on their performance. They had reached a consensus that it was the way to evaluate these actors fairly.

***

Even after the audition was over, the battle among the actors didn’t end. In fact, they were now on the battlefield where the prelude to a full-fledged war would commence. Perhaps, this was the battlefield where the most heated and calculative battles between actors would take place.

“Why did the top three contenders have to be in the same group, and audition on the same day?”

“What’s there to worry about? Can’t we just give Chae Woo-Jin the highest score and call it a day?”

Two of the judges nodded and agreed with Choi Min-Hwan. Just then, the only female judge, Kwon So-Hyun, raised an objection.

“He may have the highest score, but the runner-up, Park Min, is only one point behind. I think we have to be careful in situations like these.”

“If you put it that way, isn’t it also a pity for second runner-up Do-Ya? Since the top three are each one point apart, shouldn’t we reconsider?”

After hearing what these two judges said, the three other judges were at a loss for words because the scores of the three actors were so close to each other. This only happened as the judges that gave the lowest scores to the other applicants gave Park Min and Do-Ya perfect scores, and they gave Chae Woo-Jin a score that was slightly below average.

“In the first place, didn’t you give Chae Woo-Jin an absurd score?”

The actors were judged solely based on three criterias –– acting, appearance and English pronunciation. Kwon So-Hyun ultimately gave Chae Woo-Jin a low score for his appearance.

“That’s because of his pronunciation. I mean, how can someone who is good at English have such bad pronunciation? On the other hand, Park Min’s pronunciation is so accurate, and he sounded so refined, no? An actor representing Korea minimally have that much class.”

Choi Min-Hwan was so taken back by Kwon So-Hyun’s response that he dropped the pen he was holding.

"Lloyd is from the hood in LA. Chae Woo-Jin took that into consideration, and spoke in an LA accent that people in the hood used, as well as their lingo.”

That was one of the reasons why Choi Min-Hwan gave Chae Woo-Jin a high score. His acting was impeccable, but it was amazing how he took into consideration even the minute details when he acted.

In truth, acting in English itself was already too overwhelming for the other actors, and they used an accent that was not even close to how LA natives sounded. On the other hand, Chae Woo-Jin spoke so naturally and with such ease that it seemed as though he was born and raised in LA.

“Is that so?”

The surprised judge asked for confirmation. It seemed as though he wasn’t aware of that either.

“Yes! Even though it can’t be accurately translated into Korean, if you look at the original script, a lot of the phrases used by Lloyd was frequently used by the people from the hood in LA. However, if Lloyd were to speak elegantly in English, it would be odd.”

Kwon So-Hyun snorted in response to Choi Min-Hwan’s criticism

“In any case, there’s no way a Korean actor is going to be cast for the part. We’re just holding an audition as a formality, so we should send an actor that’s worthy of representing Korea.”

Kwon So-Hyun continued to push for Park Min to be chosen, while disregarding the importance of mimicking the native LA pronunciation. The one person who knew why she went out of her way to support Park Min turned his head around and sighed. He didn’t know how she was picked as a judge, but her existence itself spelled disaster for the rest of the judges.

“Which actor does a better job at representing Korea other than Chae Woo-Jin?”

One of the judges could no longer hold himself back and expressed his annoyance, and the judge who supported Do-Ya, Park Han-Young, refuted back.

“Isn’t Chae Woo-Jin already successful enough? Even if we don’t pick him this time, he’ll still be successful. So why are you pushing so hard to pick him? Let’s just forget about Chae Woo-Jin, and nurture a growing sprout. Do-Ya has appeared in a Hollywood movie before, and he’s still young, so the possibilities are endless. On the other hand, Park Min is no longer in his prime. Isn’t he like a sun that’s slowly setting?”

“A sun that’s setting?! That’s harsh to someone who’s only in his mid-thirties. To put it bluntly, when it comes to being a Hallyu star, the other two have nothing on Park Min!”

“To be precise, Chae Woo-Jin is the one who’s trending these days.”

In other words, Chae Woo-Jin was at the center of the recent K-wave. Additionally, Chae Woo-Jin was not only popular in Asia, he was also popular in America and Europe –– in contrast with Park Min, who wasn’t able to expand his fanbase beyond Asia.

“But Do-Ya has a huge fanbase too.”

“His fanbase is nothing compared to Park Min’s. How much more are you going to interfere in this?”

While Kwon So-Hyun and Park Han-Young were arguing with one another, the other three judges sat there with their arms folded, and looked pitifully at the two of them.

The CEO of the Korean branch of Midas Agency, Choi Min-Hwan, massaged his forehead. For the sake of a fair evaluation, apart from himself, the other four judges were recommended by the people within the film industry. However, Kwon So-Hyun and Park Han-Young seemed to have different intentions.

The other judges subtly favored other actors over the rest as well, but they weren’t as obvious about it. Needless to say, the actors they favored weren’t good enough to make it to the top three. In contrast, those two judges gave ridiculous scores to the applicants right from the start, lowering the average score. They justified the scores they gave with all kinds of excuses, but since each person had a subjective set of standards which they judged these actors by, nobody could say anything about it.

It wouldn’t have mattered if they were equally strict across the board. However, these two judges showed blatant favoritism on the final day. They gave perfect scores to Do-Ya and Park Min respectively, and gave a low score to Chae Woo-Jin, as though they had made a prior agreement about it.

Choi Min-Hwan suddenly remembered the rumor about Park Min having a sponsor. Judging from how Kwon So-Hyun was acting, he had a rough idea of what was going on. Even though Choi Min-Hwan was in charge of the Korean branch of Midas Agency, it was an international company and he wasn’t aware of the inner workings of the entertainment industry as he mainly worked abroad.

Hence, apart from the people he was closely acquainted with, Choi Min-Hwan picked the rest of the judges based on their credentials. Kwon So-Hyun was originally a businesswoman, but she had been boosting her power and credentials within this industry by investing in entertainment companies ever since a few years ago. And now, she was serving as the chairman of the Cultural Foundation, which was how she ended up being chosen as a judge.

If one were to take a closer look, Park Min’s pronunciation in English had improved. And even though he picked the first script with the most number of lines, he had it all memorized and acted it out perfectly, so there was something suspicious about it.

Even though the script for the audition was released on the day itself, any of the judges could have easily gotten hold of them prior to the audition, which would have given Park Min a day’s worth of time. That was enough time for him to study the script and to make his preparations. There was clearly a reason behind Park Min’s excellent performance.

“Putting everything aside, I think Chae Woo-Jin’s portrayal of Lloyd was inaccurate. I didn’t experience any sympathy for him like I did when I was watching Park Min’s performance. He also lacked Do-Ya’s intensity, rendering his acting dull and uninspiring.”

Kwon So-Hyun, the only judge who cried while watching Park Min’s audition, disparaged Chae Woo-Jin’s acting.