Become a Star

{Ray, do you want to watch this video?}

Hugh Miller handed the tablet to his friend, Rayford, and showed him a video. It was the behind-the-scenes video of a drama uploaded to YouTube. Even though he had just watched a dizzying scene where a person leaped from one building to another without the help of CGI, Rayford looked apathetically at his friend.

{It’s not bad but was it a stunt double?} Rayford commented.

{No, it was the actor himself! This is the actual scene from a drama that was aired on TV,} Hugh replied.

After watching the behind-the-scenes video, Hugh showed his friend a clip from the drama next. The scene that the actor himself had personally done was very energetic and spectacular. There was certainly a huge difference in realism between using a stunt double and not using one.

{The actor himself shot the scene? That’s dope!} Only then did Rayford become interested and watch both videos over and over again.

{He’s been trending on YouTube lately; he’s a very popular actor in Korea. He’s perfect in every aspect — from his looks to his acting skills and his professionalism,} Hugh gave some more details.

Rayford knitted his brows after hearing Hugh’s compliments about the actor. But unfortunately, the only thing he heard was the actor’s nationality and nothing else.

{By Korea, you mean South Korea? Man, didn’t I say I wanted a Japanese actor?} Rayford grumbled.

It was obvious why Hugh showed him this video; they needed an Asian actor to play a supporting role for their upcoming movie. They had finished casting the main characters and had just begun casting the supporting roles. The Asian character, Jin, was especially important to them. Since they were looking for an actor who was good at doing action scenes, the ideal candidate in Rayford’s mind was a Japanese actor.

{If you’re looking for an Asian who can fight, the first thing that comes to anybody’s mind would be a samurai!} Rayford said.

Hugh Miller was the writer and co-producer of the film. He clicked his tongue after hearing Rayford’s response. {Hey, look! I’m the one who wrote the script, and I didn’t think about samurai at all while I was writing it. I had only indicated ‘Asian’ on it — why do you think the character's nationality isn’t specified? That’s because I want us to freely create the character instead of limiting our creativity. I don’t want you to be too biased.}

Rayford’s face turned slightly red with shame after hearing Hugh Miller’s criticism. Hugh Miller was not just his friend but was also his co-worker and the writer of the movie. To them, a film that successfully captured a world free from prejudice was the ideal movie. However, Rayford, was also judgemental.

{I’m sorry. However, think about it carefully. This is our third film together — you know how important this movie is for us since our previous movies have been a tremendous global success. Therefore, I can’t help but be cautious and think about boosting its popularity as much as possible. Frankly, apart from a couple of actors, Korea still has little presence in Hollywood.

Hugh had nothing to say in response to Rayford’s justification. The Asian culture that the West was most familiar with was probably that of Japan. Jin’s character in their movie was significant even though it was a supporting role. It couldn’t be denied that they needed to make a prudent choice.

{Additionally, the Japanese and Chinese investors decided to be a part of our movie after hearing about the Asian character. On the other hand, we haven’t heard anything from the Koreans,} Rayford continued.

They couldn’t disregard foreign investments because of their movie’s massive production cost. However, after hearing Ray's words, Hugh responded violently, looking very displeased.

{Hold up! You were trying to get them to invest in our movie? Have you gone insane? You’re well-aware of how much they interfere with movies under the pretense of investing. Those investors were the ones who made the British eat their steak with chopsticks in David’s recent film! And also, it’s not like we lack investors. Frankly, we’re better off getting financial support from The Consccia Foundation!}

This time around, Rayford became dumbfounded after hearing Hugh’s zealous speech. {The Consccia Foundation? They’re the mafia. I’m absolutely against it!}

{Even though they manufacture arms and weapons, they’re now a legal corporation; they’re not the mafia! Additionally, their support for art and culture isn’t tainted with hidden motives. They’re already supporting so many studios, so why are you the only one making a big deal out of it?} Hugh asked.

The Consccia family started as an Italian mafia family in New York, but they had now become a legitimate business. Nonetheless, the fact that they were initially the mafia didn’t change. More importantly, even though it was a legitimate company, Rayford detested them because they manufactured weapons.

{I know that The Consccia Foundation was founded by Don Lansky, whose dying wish was to dedicate 10% of all profits to provide unconditional support to the arts and cultural projects. It still doesn’t change the fact they were once the mafia, and all that money was earned from killing people,} Rayford retorted.

Even though Rayford didn’t care much about pursuing the right thing over his own interests, he still had principles he couldn’t compromise on.

{As much as you hate receiving financial support from The Consccia Foundation, I’m equally against accepting money from those Chinese and Japanese investors. I hate things that destroy the originality of our movie more than the mafia,} Hugh stated firmly.

At the very least, The Consccia Foundation protected the essence of an artiste. This was all thanks to the current head of the Consccia family thoroughly complying with his grandfather’s wishes, whom he held in high regard.

{Ray, I understand your desire to make a perfect movie. However, we already have enough funding to cover the production costs. There’s no guarantee that our movie would turn out to be a success just because we have more financial support.}

Hugh didn’t care if they didn’t cast the actor he suggested. However, he gave Rayford a clear warning that their long-standing friendship would end if Rayford received capital from parties that later made excessive and unreasonable demands and ended up heavily compromising the movie’s production.

Hugh calmly left the office, leaving only the tablet behind on the table. Rayford awkwardly scratched his face and picked up the tablet before replaying the video Hugh had shown him earlier.

{He sure looks cool.} As he grumbled and mumbled to himself, he went to look for other videos of the actor named ‘Genie.’ After spending a few hours looking at video clips from his movies and drama, Rayford exclaimed, {Shit, he's prince charming!}

Rayford grabbed his hair with both hands, feeling very tormented. Rayford was someone who had taken a fancy to the Japanese samurai, and at this moment, nobody knew that his concerns and internal conflict had started because of a Korean actor.

***

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Woo-Jin was struggling every day. Firstly, he was anxiously waiting for Red Enemy’s release scheduled at the end of September, as well as the results of the second round of the bar exam that would be announced in early October. Regardless of how confident the production crew and actors were, the movie's success was inevitably dependent on how well-received it was by the public. And that was something no one could predict. That was the same for his exam results.

For the first round, the exam only consisted of multiple-choice questions with straightforward answers. So Woo-Jin could grade himself easily by checking which questions he had gotten right or wrong. However, the second exam was comprised of open-ended questions, so there were a lot of ambiguities. He felt as though he had done well, but most candidates shared the same confidence. As it was based on relative grading, it didn’t matter how well he did if others fared better than him. And if he passed, he still hadn’t decided whether or not he wanted to go for the interview in the third round.

“For the time being, I’ll decide after I get the results.” Planning ahead this early and getting excited over it was also rather pathetic. Moreover, Woo-Jin currently had other things to do and worry about.

The sullen Woo-Jin turned on his computer and loaded the site he had been visiting dozens of times a day lately. He proceeded to key in his login details before repeatedly taking deep breaths and exhaling.

“Last night, I went to bed immediately after writing….” Woo-Jin had gotten started on a new task recently. He had been feeling very restless and frustrated every day, so he started writing in his spare time in the hope of fulfilling the dream he couldn’t achieve in his past life. Now that he was done shooting the movie and was on summer vacation, all he could do was wait for the results of his bar exam. Writing resulted from his inability to withstand the boredom he was dealing with.

However, regardless of how great a writer he was in his past life, it didn’t go as well as he thought it would when he tried to write it himself. It was as though he was shooting a Hollywood masterpiece in his head, but his hands were not as good, producing results like that of a child carelessly pressing the shutter.

Writing required a different skill from drawing or playing a musical instrument. The more Woo-Jin wrote, the more he realized how difficult it was to construct a sentence and develop a story while keeping it realistic throughout without deviating from the subject. Nevertheless, the knowledge and experience from his past lives served as a guide for him.

To keep it as his original work, Woo-Jin wrote little by little and started converting it into a serialized novel on a literary site a month ago. He didn’t start it recklessly but had done thorough research in advance and found a site where various genres could be serialized, and anybody could easily post their novel.

After reading the works of several writers and inspecting the site's quality, he decided to do a fantasy novel. Instead of doing literary work on a complex subject, he planned to start with a light topic and inch forward step by step.

At first, he created his own unique worldview by combining the knowledge of his past lives. As he wrote twice a day, Woo-Jin went through a different experience from anything he had ever experienced before. People talked about him as a writer, and he felt encouraged by the compliments and the messages and comments from his readers telling him how enjoyable his work was.

However, at some point, as his novel began to gain popularity, people started leaving a lot of malicious comments, to the point that Woo-Jin felt he had received more negative comments in the past month than he did as an actor.

Strangely enough, he had never been hurt by the malicious comments he received as Actor Chae Woo-Jin. To a certain extent, he had confidence in his acting. Even when there were people who interpreted a role differently than Woo-Jin and pointed out the issue, he was able to confidently express his opinions. He was so confident and sure about his acting that nobody could hurt him. It wasn’t worth listening to the persistent negative comments unrelated to his acting, so he didn’t even pay any attention to them.

However, it was a slightly different story when it came to his novel. He was clearly aware that he was still a work in progress as a writer and had yet to perfect his writing style. Perhaps that was why he was very offended when people pointed out his already known flaws. And today, one such comment made him frown.”

“The prolix style is making the sentences sound boring? I’m well aware of that as well, but what do you want me to do if I can’t fix it!”

As Woo-Jin was writing the novel, he thought no one knew about his writing as much as he did. As such, he became more careful when choosing his words and hid the implicit meanings within them. It made him happy and amused when people discovered them. Even when others interpreted them differently, it made him happy in a different way. Thus, he knew the flaws of his writing better than anyone.

Nevertheless, the flaws he couldn’t fix were not to his liking, so he just let them be. As Woo-Jin was writing, he found out that he liked the prolix writing style. As he continued writing like that, the sentences became too long at times, making them harder to read. Despite that, he couldn’t stop being stubborn, and it compromised the quality of his writing at times. Even though he knew that, he couldn’t find a different solution because he wasn’t good enough yet. When people pointed out something he couldn’t change because he wasn’t good enough, it strangely lowered his self-esteem and tormented him for days.

“Ah, this person! If it’s hard to read, then don’t read it. Why are they wasting their time reading my novel? Did you think I wrote this for you to read? I’m also a busy man…no.”

Recently, Woo-Jin talked to himself a lot, and his words were becoming more aggressive. He spent most of his day writing. His daily routine consisted of planning out the storyline of his novel in his head, mumbling to himself, and getting mad at the comments that seemed malicious. While the nasty comments were upsetting, he hated the disrespectful attention-seekers even more.

Woo-Jin was well-aware that he was an attention-seeker. As a celebrity, he wanted to get people’s attention; he had acknowledged the fact that he published his novel online for everyone to see because he wanted the public’s attention, even though he could practice writing on his own in private.

“If you want attention, use your own abilities and skills. Because of people like you who try to get attention by being disrespectful to others, good people like us are being lumped together with you and getting criticized.”

Woo-Jin hated fellow attention-seekers who were rude and malicious to others. He also felt these people were pathetic because they had nothing better to do than to waste their precious time reading things they didn’t have to read and even going through the trouble of leaving comments.

“But it’s bothering me….”

That was the issue. He also thought it was strange that he kept getting hung up on things he didn’t have to care about.