Chapter 715

“She’s telling people to go fuck themselves?” Park Taeho said as he pointed at Ahn Joohyun on stage.

He did expect this from the moment she went up there so boldly, but he never knew that she would start off like that. If the people who left heard what she said, they would probably feel their blood rush backwards.

“It’s not like no one knows her foul mouth,” said Lee Junmin, who stood next to him.

He was smiling in delight as he watched the whole thing unfold.

“Did you bring her here for that purpose?”

“I did want her to liven up the mood a little, but I didn’t want this much. Look at all these people.”

“I honestly feel scared when I work with her. It feels like she might fight the director at any moment.”

“She won’t bark without reason, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

“But if she does bark, she does things beyond imagination. I mean, just look at her now. I can hear everyone related to this event getting hot on their butts. The journalists are shooting photos like mad.”

Junmin put his phone against his ear. After a short call, his right-hand man, head manager Kang, entered the theater. Head manager Kang walked over to the journalists taking photos before leaving the theater with them. Taeho could easily imagine what kind of conversation would be held outside.

“Hyung-nim, it looks like you’re quite bored these days, coming to a kiddy event like this. Is it because of Maru?”

“I’ll only be able to catch fish easily if I have many fishing rods fishing at the same time. Now that he should start working, I should give him support when I can.”

“Aren’t you being a little too biased?”

“What’s so bad about being biased? Giving motivation to those who do worse will no longer work anymore. We live in a world where taking care of the good ones is hard enough. Who would want to care about those lagging behind?”

“I just feel like you’re investing too much. If you expect too much from someone who’s just starting off, you’ll be just as disappointed later. An actor’s career won’t always work out just because you support them.”

Joining a large agency would make debuting a lot easier. It would also be a lot smoother to bundle-sell them with a famous actor. They might be able to start off in a better environment than someone who joined a nameless agency, but the entertainment industry was one where it was impossible to predict the immediate future.

“Then, have I ever slipped up like that until now?” Junmin said as he looked forward.

His gaze was directed at Maru. Taeho faintly smiled and nodded. If anyone else said the same words, he would have thought that that person was being arrogant, but when it came to Junmin, he couldn’t help but accept. Junmin looked like someone who wouldn’t predict only the immediate future, but the far goal ahead of him as well, when he chose the people he decided to nurture. As he had no history of failing, the ‘possibility of failing’ might be meaningless.

“Also, he’s the last crew to board my ship.”

“Are you going to quit your job?”

“I’m only fifty, so it’s still too early to quit. However, I don’t plan on recruiting any more new actors. I’ll just make do with the people I have and turn them into stars to my satisfaction.”

“Stars to your satisfaction? If my memory serves me correctly, there’s only one person who ever fit those criteria. Moreover, that person isn’t even around anymore.”

Junmin shrugged.

“Taeho.”

“Yes, hyung-nim.”

“Do you remember what I told you when I saw you for the first time in Daehak-ro?”

Of course, I do - Taeho replied without hesitation. He was in his mid-twenties when he met Junmin while trying to sell tickets to the play that he was an actor in. He considered the words of a man in his late 30s wearing a worn-out suit absurd. You have the look of a person who will blossom soon and become successful - these words sounded like he was some cult leader.

“Back then, I thought you were just cheering for me, but ever since then, things have turned out really well for some strange reason. It’s all in the past and now it doesn’t really matter anymore, but why did you tell me such things back then? I mean, you never saw me before that.”

“The thing is, I don’t know either.”

“What?”

“I said I don’t know why I said such things either.”

Taeho thought that he was joking, but Junmin’s expression was pretty serious.

“Did something happen?”

“The reason I decided not to raise any more new recruits is one, because I want to focus on the ones I have right now, but the bigger reason is that my eyes aren’t functioning properly anymore.”

“Do you have a problem with your eyes? That’s why I told you several times to quit drinking and smok….”

“My body’s completely fine.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Junmin stroked his chin.

“Until now, I’ve come across numerous people and selected those I saw talent in and nurtured them. But a few days ago, it suddenly came to me. What did I see in them to convince me to make them debut?”

“That’s because your eyes for people are special, so you must have seen things other people couldn’t. You’re someone who told me that I would become successful when I was just handing out leaflets.”

Junmin pulled his chin inward.

“Indeed. I had special eyes that saw special qualities in people, so I dragged in people who might seem completely unrelated to this field and had them practice. But now that I look back at it, even I don’t understand why I picked them. I looked at my interviews from before for a reason to make me accept it, but I couldn’t find anything. That’s why I thought - ah, my eyes for people are dead. The special eyes I possessed a long time ago have disappeared.”

“Are you sure you aren’t in a slump or something? You should take a few days off and have a look at the trainees again. Who knows? You might be able to regain them.”

“I did that already and nothing came to me. The only thing I could do was to pick people based on the data I’ve gained in the past. But that’s something that all moderately-decent agencies do. It’s different from what I was doing before.”

“Well, it did seem like your choices were completely based on instinct before. You didn’t even look at people’s acting and just chose them seemingly at random. Back then, I thought that maybe you had a completely different set of eyes from me.”

“I can’t do that anymore. I don’t even remember what kind of standards I had when I picked people before. I don’t even know if it’s memory loss resulting from psychotherapy, or because my special eyes disappeared with my messed-up brain returning to normal. You know what’s even funnier? I skimmed through the diaries and materials I wrote 17 years ago, and I felt like it was a completely different person writing it. The current me cannot even begin to understand what kind of thoughts I had in life back then, or what kind of confidence I had at the time when I did my work.”

Junmin smiled with a refreshed yet bitter smile. Taeho made a bitter smile as well as he looked at the legend who had zero losses against the industry, quietly declaring his retirement.

“That boy is the last product of my instincts. I’m not capable of picking new people, so I plan to invest everything I have into the people I have.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Hyung-nim, you never know what will happen in life. Who knows? You might regain that instinct tomorrow.”

“There are a few things I’ve come to realize as I got older, and one of them is that my intuition has rarely failed me.”

Junmin turned around.

“Are you leaving?”

“Do you plan to go up there?”

Taeho looked at Joohyun, who was talking to the students at the edge of the stage. The main character had completely taken over the stage and the audience was completely captivated by her.

“I don’t see a place for me.”

“Right? Let’s leave now and eat dinner while we’re at it. I let you go through so much effort for this, so I can’t let you starve.”

“I didn’t go through that much. In fact, it was good to see films that were produced without any strings attached. Kids these days are really amazing. They are a generation that grew up watching high-quality films, so they don’t follow the standards. Once those guys grow up and grab the megaphones, I think the movie industry of this country will change a lot.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

“Why, you don’t think so?”

“It would be great if that happens, but I question if there will come a day where actors and directors could win against the production companies and distribution companies. It might become even worse in the future, but it will definitely not be better. Businesses do not like standing out. They like being stable. The people gathered here definitely possess different qualities from the rest, but whether that will work in the market or whether the market would allow them to do so in the first place, is up to debate.”

“Did you really have to nip the buds like that? If they can’t, people like you should support them.”

Junmin, who walked towards the exit without saying anything, spoke in a small voice: that’s why I’m earning money like mad right now.

While there was a sense of loathing in his words, he sounded more reliable and credible than any hypocrite.

“I would like to shoot a deep, romantic one.”

“I can’t do that with my powers either. No matter who looks at you, you have the image of a psychopath or a warm father. Very far from feeling romantic.”

“Gee, that was a little too much. Hyung-nim, can’t you do this little brother a favor?”

Taeho smiled and caught up to Junmin.

* * *

“Why did you quit acting midway into your career and switch to commercials?”

A girl with glasses had raised her hand and asked. Maru flinched and looked at Joohyun. Having received a question, Joohyun smiled and replied,

“Should I tell you what really happened? Or what I tell the media?”

She had a smiling face, but the girl seemed to have noticed it was something serious as she hesitated a little before saying ‘the real thing’.

“Does anyone here have the dream of entering the TV or the movie industry in the future?”

Hearing Joohyun’s question, more than twenty people raised their hands.

“That’s quite a lot. Good, it’s not fun to go into the details, so let me put it simply. I was asked to serve someone, and I refused to do it.”

For a brief moment, the theater turned completely silent. The girl who asked the question especially couldn’t say anything.

“The news you see on TV from time to time, while I can’t say that they are all true, they aren’t entirely false either. There are definitely not-so-decent events happening and while there are people who manage to shake off their temptations, there are those who can’t. Don’t ask me who. You shouldn’t ask things like that.”

“Really?” another one asked.

“Whatever you do, illegal things will tempt you from all around. As there are many people who live by selling off their faces in the entertainment industry, the temptations are just usually related to your faces. Of course, it’s not as bad or as forceful as it was before. As I said, it’s a temptation. There shouldn’t be any places anymore that say ‘there’s no future for you if you don’t take this’. There’s the internet after all. But that just makes them even more secretive when they give you suggestions. They make it sound really sweet - they tell you that just once is enough. Let me tell you something because there seems to be a lot of you who want to come to this industry: don’t ever fall for their temptations. If you give in once, you will keep falling for it the second time and the third time. People's willpower and their urge to restrain isn’t really anything strong. Just once, the important thing is to endure that first time.”

“Did you not have any difficulties returning?”

The girl who asked the first question had asked another. She seemed like she wanted to become an actress as desperation could be felt in her voice.

“People’s gazes. That was the scary part. But the thing is, you know? If you don’t have bad skills, some people are bound to call for you. That’s just how the market works. Even if some company says ‘don’t use her’, there are bound to be other businesses who go ‘use her’. People who have value will not have to worry about feeding themselves. Was I too blunt with that?”

Joohyun laughed out loud. Having listened to the dark parts of the entertainment industry, the students’ faces looked stiff for a while, but they soon regained their smiles. Perhaps the shock wasn’t as big because it was a distant thing for them.

“Do you have to be good-looking to become an actor?” asked a boy.

“I also have an answer for the media and an answer not for the media.”

“I’d like an answer not for the media.”

“For men, they’re better off. But for actresses, they have to be good-looking, at least right now. That’s the truth. Should I show you proof if that’s true or not?”

Joohyun raised a finger.

“Raise your hand if you saw an ordinary-looking male actor play the role of a main character in a Korean film recently.”

The majority of the students raised their hands.

“Conversely, raise your hand if you saw an ordinary-looking actress play the role of the main character in a movie. I don’t mean minor roles, but as a main character.”

None of them raised their hands. Joohyun shrugged.

“You get what I mean, right? I’m sorry to say this, but you can improve your acting skills, but there’s a limit to what you can do for your appearance. These days, the general trend is that you will be forgiven for undergoing plastic surgery if you reveal it carefully, but there are still people who don’t like people who have had knives to their faces. As such, if you are dreaming of becoming an actress, and you think your appearances are at or below average, then I’m sorry to say this, but you won’t be able to for the time being. It would be great if actresses with character are loved in the future, but I’m not sure about the future either.”

Joohyun put the mic against her mouth.

“But still, I’d like to you to tell you to try. It might sound arrogant of me, and I can’t help it even if you call me irresponsible, but I don’t want to tell you to give up on your dreams just because of your looks. That’s because I've seen someone who could dominate everyone with her acting skills alone despite looking really ordinary.”

“Who is that?”

“There used to be an unni like that. That’s why, I’m telling you that while reality might be harsh, I believe that you can do it. Bluntly speaking, if looks decide what kind of acting you do, that would be really sad, won’t it?”

Joohyun looked at the girl who asked the question.

“It didn’t help that much since I sounded irresponsible, didn’t I?”

The girl shook her head.

“No, in fact, I want to try challenging it. I just have to do what everyone couldn’t do until now, don’t I?”

“I really like that mindset of yours. I hope we see each other on set in the future.”

Joohyun raised her thumb and smiled.