Become a Star

{Is this how you feel every time I ask you to drink with me?}

{Maybe?}

As soon as Woo-Jin answered in the affirmative, Dustin said he understood and waved him off. The best thing about Dustin was that he gave up very quickly and didn’t hold any grudges.

{By the way, you have a lot of friends, but why do you only think about drinking whenever you see me?}

{I have many friends, but nobody stays sober enough to take care of me.}

Dustin became very drunk on the first day, but Woo-Jin took care of him and brought him to his manager. That incident seemed to have left a deep impression on Dustin. It made sense considering he had quite a number of drinking escapades with friends and acquaintances where they took photos of his drunk self and sold them to broadcasting stations that covered entertainment news, as well as tabloids.

For some reason, he developed some sort of strange trust in Woo-Jin that allowed him to comfortably drink to his heart’s content and become drunk.

{Why don’t you get a girlfriend instead?}

When Woo-Jin suggested to Dustin to get a girlfriend if he wanted to have a drinking partner he was comfortable around, Dustin’s cheeks suddenly turned red.

{What’s with this instant reaction?}

Woo-Jin looked at Dustin with a suspicious look and took a step back to distance himself from him.

{Don’t misunderstand! It’s not what you think.}

{What’s there to misunderstand? Besides, even if that’s not the case, it’s kind of suspicious that you’ve been hanging around with me a lot lately.}

Dustin often put his arm around Woo-Jin’s shoulders and showed physical affection towards him at times. However, once Woo-Jin became suspicious of him, there were more than one or two things that seemed suspicious.

{That’s because bromance is popular these days!}

As friendship and platonic touch between men had gained popularity among women, agencies secretly encouraged it — as long as it was done in moderation. Having two beautiful young men standing next to each other alone was enough for women to feast their eyes, so what would happen if they became friends with one another? Nothing could create a better synergy effect than this.

Since it was a world where actors deliberately pretended to be good friends to make their movie a success, Dustin tried his best to befriend Woo-Jin.

{More importantly, there’s a girl I like.}

{Really? Then you should meet with her. Why do you always pester me to drink with you?}

Woo-Jin lectured him, saying they had been too busy these days for him to have enough time to spend with the girl he liked and questioned how he even had time to drink.

{She doesn’t want to meet me in private….}

Even without hearing the details, it was obvious to Woo-Jin that it was an unrequited crush.

{Have you confessed to her?}

{Maybe twelve times? Or thirteen times. But she rejected me every single time.}

{Ah…I get why you drown yourself in alcohol now.}

If confessing his feelings to her repeatedly was representative of how much he liked her, Woo-Jin understood why Dustin had been drowning himself in alcohol.

{In that case, drink with me today.}

{Understanding why and drinking with you are two different things. But I'm rather curious about the woman who did this to you.}

A person’s feelings might not be dependent on the other party’s qualifications, but Dustin was quite a good catch. Aside from the fact that he drank too much, he checked the rest of the boxes — he was a good-looking and successful man with a pleasant personality and also came from a good family. He was considered a perfect man[1].

{A perfect woman who is beautiful, successful, comes from a good family, and has a solid educational background!}

There was another qualification Woo-Jin left out in his evaluation of Dustin — his educational background. However, Dustin had also left something out.

{What about her personality?}

{....}

Dustin couldn’t answer that question, so Woo-Jin patted him on the shoulder. Then, Woo-Jin looked troubled and asked him a question.

{Is it okay for you to tell me something this personal?}

Woo-Jin felt it was too dangerous for a Hollywood star to talk about his unrequited love with a person he had only met less than two weeks ago. Dustin debuted in his late teens and had now become a world-famous star who everyone knew by name. Hence, Woo-Jin was concerned about whether or not it was okay for him to tell a random person about his private life.

{In any case, everyone knows about my one-sided crush ever since ten years ago, so it’s not exactly a secret.}

{It’s my first time hearing about your unrequited crush, though?}

The story about Dustin’s ten-year unrequited crush was big enough to be published. However, Woo-Jin had never seen any articles or entertainment news on TV talking about it prior to his conversation with Dustin.

{Well, if anybody were to say anything bad about her, they would end up like this.}

Dustin made the throat-slitting gesture while saying that media companies would be in hot water if they were to mess with her. That alone was enough for Woo-Jin to have a rough idea of what the woman he liked was like without having to dig deeper. On the other hand, the story of Dustin having an unrequited crush on the perfect woman (apart from her personality) for ten years was also rather pitiful.

{Don’t drown your sorrows in alcohol just because you don’t stand a chance to be with her.}

{How can you say that I don’t stand a chance! I’m going to become successful and confess to her again!}

From Woo-Jin’s point of view, he was already a successful star, but Dustin seemed to be aiming higher.

{Did she say she was going to give you a chance when you become more successful?}

{....}

{Stop drinking after today, and start working hard tomorrow onwards.}

{So let’s drink….}

{I don’t have an unrequited crush, unlike somebody, so I’ll get going now. See you.}

Even though Dustin was five years older than Woo-Jin, it seemed as though he was younger than Woo-Jin. Woo-Jin was worried about Dustin being lonely and was concerned about him liking and trusting people too easily. Although Dustin was loved by many people, Woo-Jin hoped he would heal from his emotional wound of failing to win the heart of the person he liked and pick himself up again. Woo-Jin was against his method of resorting to alcohol to soothe his pain, so he refused to hang out with him.

When Dustin started drinking, he would drink copious amounts of alcohol with absolutely no self-control, so Woo-Jin found it fascinating whenever he showed up on set the next day on time, looking fresh. Woo-Jin didn’t know if it was because Dustin was healthy, that his body was evidently doing a good job breaking down the alcohol, or that he had taken extra care to manage himself in a foreign place. Hence, even though Woo-Jin felt sorry for Dustin, he didn’t get caught up in worrying about him.

In truth, Woo-Jin didn’t have time to worry about other people right now. He was under a lot of pressure as his entry into Hollywood had been promoted extensively in Korea. If the movie became a flop or if he barely appeared in the movie because his scenes had been edited out, it would be rather embarrassing for him, so Woo-Jin couldn’t sleep much these days.

Fortunately, the worries of the people around him were unfounded — Woo-Jin adapted more quickly to Hollywood’s production system than expected, and he got along well with others.

Since he was an American in one of his past lives, it wasn’t that difficult for him to adapt. Even though economics and science had made astonishing progress, and mindsets and knowledge had become broader and deeper than before, some things still didn’t change. Each country, race, and region had its own unique disposition. Their identities didn’t change easily, regardless of how much time had passed. By understanding and accepting this, living abroad wasn’t as difficult as one would think.

Kang Ho-Soo and Hwang Yi-Young were worried about Woo-Jin subconsciously being selective in who he talked to, as he had the tendency to do that, but their worries were unfounded. Instead, Woo-Jin embraced the American culture and became more like them to the point it surprised the two of them. He found pleasure in socializing with people and enjoyed his freedom. Compared to how he had to constantly pay attention to his surroundings in Korea, he was presently out of the public eye, so he felt more comfortable and free. Hence, he often showed his easygoing and carefree side to the people he met instead of being formal.

In fact, Woo-Jin struggled more to adapt to Hollywood’s filming environment rather than interacting with people. After all, Korea could not be compared to Hollywood in terms of scale and amount of resources. Even though the lax system they operated on was enviable, Woo-Jin did indeed struggle to adapt to it.

There were scenes where miniature models and CGI were used to create backgrounds, but the production crew would create the actual thing on set in real life if necessary. The ten-story high structure was overwhelmingly big, and its minute details made it seem realistic. It was a system that allowed actors to act to their hearts’ content because of the abundant capital and technology, except being surrounded by dozens of cameras created an environment that slightly hindered his ability to be immersed in the acting.

They surrounded the set with cameras because they wanted to shoot the movie in 3D. Still, Hollywood’s system was different from Korea's. Here they shot individual actors’ scenes separately, while in Korea, they shot the scenes based on a storyboard that had already been established, which played a part in making it hard for Woo-Jin to adapt. Moreover, since Woo-Jin didn’t know how it would be edited, he had to try his best to act well even in scenes where his character was not within the frame.

Needless to say, he didn’t act half-heartedly in any of his scenes in Korea either, but he was bound to feel twice as anxious when filming a scene without knowing how it would be edited. The environment and system might have been different, but it didn’t change the essence of acting. As long as an actor worked hard and had fun, they would be able to act regardless of where they were. In truth, there was nothing more important than that.

On days when Woo-Jin had no scenes to shoot or when he had free time, he would leave the hotel and spend his time walking down the streets or sitting in a cafe. Since the place was filled with tourists, he often met other Koreans and tourists from Asia, but nonetheless, he enjoyed quite a high degree of freedom during his leisure time compared to what it was like in Korea.

~

Today, Woo-Jin paid a visit to Hollywood Forever Cemetery; it was located fairly close to the hotel. Apart from contemplating death and immortality, he had no other reason for visiting the burial site of notable figures within the film and culture industry.

After reading the script and studying Jin's character, Woo-Jin became interested in his almost-immortal life. Jin had lived the longest out of all the guardians, but his exact age wasn’t specified in the script. It only stated he had lived longer than the other guardians, who had lived for more than 300 or 600 years.

“I wonder what it feels like to live for so long….” Woo-Jin muttered softly as he looked at the tombstones and statues around him bearing familiar names. Since it wasn’t specified, he simply assumed Jin was someone who had lived for a thousand years. He imagined what thoughts he would have and what kind of mindset he would adopt if he had lived for that long.

Perhaps, out of all the people in the world, Woo-Jin was the best to know how it felt. Since he remembered 999 of his past lives, a thousand years was nothing in comparison. However, remembering his past lives and living for a long time was clearly different. Regardless of how many memories he had, it was unreasonable to compare them to the weight of time that had gone on continuously. If Woo-Jin's memories weren’t separate memories of his previous lives but memories of one continuous life, then what?

“That’s awful.”

Being born as a human in the beginning and having a life close to immortality wasn’t something he thought the mind could handle. As such, Woo-Jin thought he was somewhat remarkable and felt a sense of superiority. Being able to have a clear mind despite remembering all 999 of his previous lives was proof of strong willpower and high self-esteem.

“Maybe I’m a god, like Jin?”

In Guardian Angel, the guardians were akin to gods of each continent. They were beings who were born as humans and died as gods. So in some ways, the storyline had a fair bit of religious overtones.

Woo-Jin felt embarrassed for seeing himself as someone on the same level as a guardian, so he looked around and laughed to himself. Kang Ho-Soo was following him quietly from behind; he simply let him be despite Woo-Jin’s strange behavior.

Woo-Jin looked around the cemetery and sat on the grass where he could see the tombstones. Kang Ho-Soo kept some distance from him and sat down as well. On days when Woo-Jin was very troubled over character analysis, it was Kang Ho-Soo’s job to keep his distance and not disturb him. Because of that, Woo-Jin was able to quietly construct Jin’s life without worrying about his surroundings.

Jin must have had a family in the beginning, but because he became a guardian, he had to part ways with them and lead a completely different life. He certainly would have loved a person before, through the course of his long life, and he must have experienced moments of despair because of that as well.

How did he endure every moment of despair and become the current Jin?

The script didn’t have a detailed storyline, so Woo-Jin had to depend on his imagination. When he unleashed his imagination, a story appeared in his mind, just like when he wrote his novel last year.

Jin was born into a happy family and became a guardian when he was in his early twenties. After that, he parted ways with his family, but he didn’t stop caring about them. He must have watched over them from afar, protecting them, and secretly cried to himself as he watched them take turns to leave this world. And at some point, he could no longer call anyone his descendants and stopped visiting them altogether. As time flew by, he became more and more distant from them in terms of the degree of kinship. When reality couldn’t keep up with the memories and attachment, it was only natural that the bond with his descendants gradually disappeared.

How would an individual gradually change after being alone for a very long time?

That was Woo-Jin’s main concern today.

If an individual had lived for a thousand years, would they be interested in every moment? Or would human beings and the world become nothing but worthless to him? According to the script, both didn’t seem applicable to Jin.

Jin didn’t give up on his boring life — he kept up with the changing times and had always actively enjoyed life. He was very different from Angelica, who was struggling because she was tired of life after living for only 600 years. Perhaps, that was why Jin had lived longer than anyone else.

Even though the other guardians shook their heads and gave up on Robert, the difference separating Jin from them allowed him to accept Robert and properly guide him. However, Woo-Jin couldn’t understand why Jin was this way. After imagining himself living for more than a thousand years, Woo-Jin felt it was more awful than great, so Jin’s carefree disposition didn’t make sense to him.

The relationship between Jin, the teacher, and Robert, the student, played a huge part in Guardian Angel. There was a reason why Dustin brought up ‘bromance.’ As such, the relationship developed between the two people made the movie more interesting, and the combination of two completely different individuals was expected to be the highlight of the movie.

Was Robert a fascinating and interesting individual to someone who had lived for so long? Or was he someone special, out of all the people Jin had met thus far? If so, what was the reason? Depending on the criteria he set, the portrayal of his relationship with Robert would be slightly different.

1. The actual term used here was 엄친아, short for 엄마 친구의 아들, which literally means the child of mom’s friend. Mothers always compare their children to their friends’ children, hence the term 엄친아 is used to describe someone who’s perfect. ☜