A genius child actress who made headlines ten years ago.
Ju Seo-yeon.
'She definitely has acting skills. But standing on stage is a different matter.'
Director Jo Do-yul picked up his pen as he watched Seo-yeon step forward.
Before him lay a notebook for evaluation.
The first audition, a video of her freestyle acting.
From the video alone, one could clearly tell she was an actress.
Looking at the camera and delivering the corresponding acting.
The 'Hong Jeong-hee' seen through the video had the actress's own interpretation infused into it.
But it was not excessive, and naturally melted in.
That was why, despite several anxiety-inducing factors, she passed the first audition.
'The script?'
'Looks like you've memorized it all.'
'Hmm.'
Seo-yeon's script was resting on the chair.
Memorizing all the lines is good, but it isn't essential.
There were plenty of actors who held their scripts during auditions.
So while it left a good impression, it wasn't in the realm of bonus points.
Making a mistake while acting without a script was rather more of a problem.
'Now, what will she show us.'
Hong Jeong-hee's scene given in the script was Act 3, Scene 6, where her insidiousness is intensely revealed.
The romance scene where Bae Seong-hak and Song Min-seo share a fresh flirtation.
It begins from Hong Jeong-hee's perspective as she secretly watches them.
The conclusion of Act 3, and the omen signaling the crisis of Act 4.
It was that important of a scene; if she didn't properly showcase Hong Jeong-hee here, the character of Hong Jeong-hee would die in the next act.
'Will she do well?'
'But she took a 10-year break.'
'Dramas and plays are different, right?'
Moreover, beyond simply taking a 10-year break, Seo-yeon's only experience of acting properly was a single work, *The Moon That Hid the Sun*.
In terms of experience, she was bound to be lacking in many ways.
However.
'She has an aura.'
An aura that captivates the gaze.
Innate talent.
As everyone faced those fragments.
"Heh."
Seo-yeon's acting began.
"Lies."
Looking down, a laugh, followed by a single word.
The moment he heard that voice, Jo Do-yul got goosebumps.
Because she acted well?
No, because the voice was conveyed so distinctly.
'What the.'
Didn't she say it was her first play?
Looking ahead, the genius child actress Ju Seo-yeon was already gone.
Her back was hunched.
Her long hair flowed forward, giving a gloomy feel.
The beauty vanished from that once-pretty face.
"Why, why are you smiling at a bitch like that? You've never shown me that side before."
What is the difference between play acting and drama acting?
It is the method of expression.
Dramas are more emotional, and detailed acting is important.
It's possible to enlarge the actor's face and capture their emotions.
What is commonly referred to as natural acting.
Putting emotion into the expression of daily life and expressing it—that is drama acting.
But what about a play?
"No way, heh, no way that's true. I-isn't he being deceived? That b-bitch is definitely, d-definitely trying to seduce my innocent oppa. That's it!"
Seo-yeon grabbed her chest exaggeratedly, her feet staggering in a zigzag pattern.
She moved like a woman unable to properly keep her balance in a dark alleyway.
She didn't stop moving as she spat out her lines.
Play acting.
It lies in physical expression.
Exaggerated movements; similar, yet different.
Unlike movies or dramas, the emotion an actor shows on stage is conveyed through their body rather than their face.
Hands and arms.
Legs, and the heaving body gestures.
Along with that, she vomits out Hong Jeong-hee's lines.
Her voice trembled slightly, but her pronunciation wasn't mangled.
Proof that she learned vocalization properly.
Her voice was also somewhat different from the first time he heard it.
A cracked, insidious woman's voice.
'Damn, crazy.'
The actors who had come in with Seo-yeon rubbed their forearms as they watched her act.
Those exaggerated movements weren't awkward at all.
As if watching an actual play, no one could deny that the person before their eyes was 'Hong Jeong-hee'.
"Should I try going secretly too? Heh, like this, if I wear a uniform. Oppa wouldn't be able to push me away so harshly either."
This part wasn't in the script.
But it naturally slipped into the dialogue.
Seo-yeon's current attire was a school uniform.
On the other hand, Hong Jeong-hee is a college student in her twenties.
Naturally, the attire was a mismatch, but she incorporated it naturally.
A woman in her twenties acting as a teenager to approach an idol.
That alone was enough to represent Hong Jeong-hee's insidiousness.
'Did she aim for that?'
Or was it improvisation?
It's her first play.
Proving that was her blocking.
Blocking refers to the movement path taken while acting.
Seo-yeon, who had no experience standing on an actual stage, naturally lacked that blocking.
But she herself recognized it too.
The path drawn in her head, Hong Jeong-hee hiding in the alleyway watching them and moving with staggering steps.
It was awkward as blocking, but because of that, the acting resonated even more.
It served to portray Hong Jeong-hee's unstable psychology.
And what about her gaze?
The audience reads emotions through the actor's body, but they want to see the face.
As if recognizing this, Seo-yeon's gaze naturally drifted toward some of the judges.
"Just a little, please wait just a little bit. Oppa. I, I will definitely..."
Shrinking her body, she turned around with short strides.
As if stepping outside the stage.
Like that, Seo-yeon's 'Hong Jeong-hee' acting ended.
"..."
There was a strange silence.
Jo Do-yul reconsidered. She lacks experience because she's only done dramas?
Sure, experience might be lacking. But the skill and talent that overcame it shone brilliantly.
It was the acting of a genius that even a fool could recognize.
The insufficient blocking, the slightly wavering gaze handling.
She'd probably pick these up quickly if taught.
"Actress Seo-yeon, your age right now is..."
"Seventeen."
"First year of high school?"
"Yes."
A calm answer.
It was completely different from Hong Jeong-hee's appearance just now.
The faded light had returned.
"Hmm."
Jo Do-yul looked at his hand holding the pen, and the paper for scoring.
Words he had scribbled unconsciously were written on it.
'First of all...'
'This one, it seems to be over, right?'
Such gazes were exchanged.
She fit Hong Jeong-hee better than any other actor seen today.
The faces of the actors waiting for their turn after her told the answer.
Actors overwhelmed by another actor's performance cannot put on a good act.
Tap, tap.
Jo Do-yul, who was tapping the desk with his pen, soon nodded.
"It was truly an excellent performance. Originally, I should ask a few more questions, but."
She had already shown everything she wanted to ask through her acting.
How she viewed the character Hong Jeong-hee.
And the reason she came wearing a school uniform.
"Acting that absolutely cannot be seen as a seventeen-year-old's. Did you continue to act during your break?"
"I kept going to an acting academy."
"An acting academy? Ah, by any chance, where..."
So the other judges asked, and Seo-yeon calmly answered.
Like an emotionless child.
Such a thought crossed his mind, but seeing the acting she just showed, that was absolutely impossible.
Above all, wasn't the actress Ju Seo-yeon a child actress whose strength was 'emotional acting'?
"Well, then..."
All questions ended, and Seo-yeon returned to her seat.
While the face of the next called actor turned blue.
'...It's a shame.'
Seo-yeon swept her face with her palm.
She believed she acted well.
Because the judges' reactions were good too.
Would it have been better to pour out more emotion?
When it actually came to acting in her first play, even after practicing multiple times and listening to the instructor and other actors, there were still parts she couldn't be certain of.
It was a phenomenon that appeared because she had never done it directly in front of an audience.
Above all, she hadn't even seen a play in her past life.
'I tried to hide the movement paths as much as possible, but.'
It was acting everyone admired, but Seo-yeon recalled a few mistakes in this performance.
And she wanted to put in a little more emotion.
However, if she had put in deeper emotion or performed method acting, those mistakes would have multiplied.
With emotion simulation, just wearing a mask was enough for theatrical acting.
Even knowing that, there was a part of herself that felt regret.
'I wonder, how will it be.'
Seo-yeon grew tense.
Amidst everyone's admiration for Seo-yeon's acting, she saw the woman who quietly kept her seat.
Pyo Ji-woo.
She had been staring at Bae Seong-hak all along.
While everyone else sought to put on a performance that would steal the spotlight, Pyo Ji-woo hadn't given a single glance to Seo-yeon's acting until the very end.
And.
For a moment, Pyo Ji-woo's gaze turned toward Seo-yeon.
'...She's smiling?'
A chilling, sinister smile containing a bizarre emotion.
Pyo Ji-woo looked at Seo-yeon with such a smile.
The will that she would absolutely, absolutely never let go of this role could be felt from those eyes.
"Then, lastly, Actress Pyo Ji-woo."
"Yes."
However, amidst that sunken atmosphere, she stood up at Jo Do-yul's call.
Staggering.
Already, her gait gave the shape of reminding one of 'Hong Jeong-hee'.
"I will start the acting."
After a few questions were exchanged first, Pyo Ji-woo began her acting.
The questions and answers were ordinary, without any particular edges.
Even with a slightly strange feeling, no one here noticed her abnormality.
Even Min Seo-ho, the party involved in the issue.
But among them, just one person.
Seo-yeon knew Pyo Ji-woo.
Plays or movies.
Not those things, she had first seen her on the 'News'.
"Heh, ...l-lies."
She bends her body, her wavy hair flowing down.
It covers her face like wet seaweed.
Between the strands, the revealed pupils held a glistening madness.
"!!!"
In an instant, the actor playing Bae Seong-hak, Min Seo-ho, got goosebumps.
Because her pupils were clearly aimed at him.
Was it because he was playing Bae Seong-hak?
'Method acting!'
Jo Do-yul tensed his body.
Pyo Ji-woo's atmosphere changed in an instant.
Goosebumps rose. There was a viscous, spreading darkness.
Hong Jeong-hee's setting is a type commonly seen in reality.
Because of that, it's even more unpleasant, and even more insidious.
There was a fear stemming from that.
If Seo-yeon's acting was focused on that insidiousness.
Pyo Ji-woo was that unpleasantness.
As if, the unpleasantness of facing the real Hong Jeong-hee.
A fear one wants to shake off and cast aside.
"Method, I need to find a method. That bitch, that d-despicable bitch, a method to eliminate her."
Seo-yeon clenched her fist as she watched Pyo Ji-woo's acting.
Right, this is it.
It felt like the real Hong Jeong-hee was right in front of her.
Method acting?
You could say that.
'This acting, the acting that led her into the film industry.'
This madness that everyone praised.
Is real.
Pyo Ji-woo was the stalker of the actor playing 'Bae Seong-hak', Min Seo-ho.
She hadn't even been caught, a genuine stalker who shadowed him to the very end.
'At the same time, her acting skills too... are the real deal.'
The handling of her gaze, and her theatrical movements were all properly in place.
Especially her blocking was more skilled than Seo-yeon's.
That was only natural, as this wasn't Pyo Ji-woo's first play.
With the sole desire to act by Min Seo-ho's side, she had already appeared in several plays.
Of course, her evaluations in other plays were just average.
Because she hadn't acted with her true heart in the first place.
But this time is different.
Hong Jeong-hee is Pyo Ji-woo's true self.
If everything up until now was a practice process, this was the goal she absolutely had to achieve.
"...I'm finished."
When Pyo Ji-woo's acting ended.
The surroundings froze in a different sense.
The emergence of an unexpected dark horse.
The borderline-madness acting Pyo Ji-woo had just shown.
'Heh.'
Pyo Ji-woo smiled with deep satisfaction.
The judges wore faces filled with dilemma.
'For this role, I'm a better fit. Right? I am, Hong Jeong-hee.'
She herself knew that fact as well.
This is a role bestowed by the heavens.
A destiny laid down to connect Min Seo-ho and herself.
Therefore, even if it was a genius child actress, she couldn't stop it.
Holding such thoughts, she looked at the brilliant genius child actress.
"...!"
Ju Seo-yeon.
When she saw the girl who dazzled the eyes just by looking.
For a moment, Pyo Ji-woo froze.
Ju Seo-yeon was staring at her with an expressionless face.
Outside the lighting, in the dark shade.
From there, faintly glowing red eyes were staring at her.
A tranquil longing. A hostility declaring she would absolutely not lose.
At that fierce emotion, Pyo Ji-woo stiffened.
"Hmm, this."
Jo Do-yul's voice was heard from behind Pyo Ji-woo, who was turning around.
"We need to see one more scene from these two."
Conversation between the judges.
It was a small voice, but Pyo Ji-woo, who was close to the judges, could hear it.
Hearing those words, when she looked at Ju Seo-yeon.
The previously expressionless Seo-yeon's lips were twisted.
A sneer.
A mockery directed at herself, who had been wearing a smile of victory.
She returned exactly the smile Pyo Ji-woo had shown Seo-yeon earlier by mimicking it.
At that smile, Pyo Ji-woo bit her lower lip.
A mere little girl.
An evil bitch trying to steal the role the heavens had destined for her.
She thought she had naturally won, but why on earth!
'Fine, so this is what you want.'
Pyo Ji-woo and Seo-yeon's gazes clashed in the air.
Naturally, neither had any intention of yielding the role.