The Face Genius Actor

Episode 091

Ji Jung-hyun was keeping a close eye on Si-joon.

It was natural, as Si-joon was the protagonist of , which Ji Jung-hyun had personally invested in and was involved in producing.

At the same time, Si-joon was also an actor directly working with him.

Even if he tried not to pay attention to Si-joon, he couldn’t help it.

‘Hmm… He certainly has solid fundamentals.’

Si-joon’s acting skills were originally excellent.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say he was one of the most impressive actors in terms of acting ability since .

Although his skills hadn’t yet reached the level of Ji Jung-hyun or veteran actors,

It wouldn’t be strange for him to stand shoulder to shoulder with other leading actors.

He was that skilled.

Ji Jung-hyun thought it wasn’t for nothing that Si-joon had taken on the role of high school student Shin Han-jae.

But Si-joon’s skills didn’t stop there.

It was clear that he had developed through and .

After deciding to cast Si-joon for the role of Kim Sung-yeon,

Ji Jung-hyun revisited and found the chemistry with Park Jun impressive.

It was immediately apparent that they were enjoying acting together and matching each other’s rhythm.

This was something Ji Jung-hyun could understand due to his long experience in acting.

Above all, it was impressive that Si-joon was the one who drew out Park Jun’s potential.

‘Park Jun is a good actor. But he’s also a difficult actor to that extent.’

That’s why Ji Jung-hyun himself had experienced quite a lot of difficulties when working with Park Jun in the past.

In the end, they fell out and became estranged, not even contacting each other.

But somehow, Si-joon managed to soothe even Park Jun and lead .

To others, it might have looked like Park Jun was leading Si-joon, but not to Ji Jung-hyun.

He immediately recognized that Si-joon was the one who solved Park Jun’s issues.

And just this fact alone showed how much better of an actor Si-joon had become.

After all, having a positive influence on a co-star was not an easy task, even for Ji Jung-hyun himself.

‘But he developed once again through .’

Ji Jung-hyun didn’t highly rate the success potential of .

Although Cindy, an outstanding actress even Ji Jung-hyun had to acknowledge, was cast as the main female lead, there were too many risk factors.

In particular, he was concerned that Director Yoo Sung-hyo was from the film industry and had never directed a romantic comedy before.

But somehow, with Si-joon on board was a great success.

It was far from Ji Jung-hyun’s expectations, and he became curious about how it could have happened.

So he asked one of the on-site staff members of .

And through this person, he heard surprising news.

‘Director Yoo Sung-hyo changed the direction of editing after listening to the two lead actors’ stories?’

He even heard that Si-joon played the biggest role in this process.

It was a situation where Ji Jung-hyun couldn’t help but open his eyes wide in surprise.

It was too much of a coincidence that the success factors of both works were all pointing towards Si-joon.

After that day, Ji Jung-hyun eagerly awaited Si-joon’s joining of .

He became confident that with Si-joon, they could successfully complete , which he had personally invested in and was involved in producing.

In the process, he was a bit annoyed when Park Jun unexpectedly attempted to hijack the role, but

In the end, Si-joon joined without any major upset, and finally, Ji Jung-hyun could see his acting with his own eyes.

‘As expected…’

Si-joon’s acting was remarkable.

It felt like he was perfectly embodying the role of Kim Sung-yeon without the slightest error.

The best part was that Si-joon saw him as Yoon Woo-sung, not Ji Jung-hyun.

Si-joon was surprisingly acting while looking only at Yoon Woo-sung, without being conscious of Ji Jung-hyun’s existence.

‘I wonder how long it’s been since I’ve experienced such chemistry.’

Ji Jung-hyun felt his body naturally heating up.

Thanks to that, he felt like he had become possessed by his character for the first time in a long while.

As Ji Jung-hyun became Yoon Woo-sung, he unknowingly showcased acting that wasn’t in his calculations.

Like standing still instead of hiding behind a telephone pole when he could,

Or aiming at Kim Sung-yeon instead of hiding his gun to conceal his identity.

“Cut! Okay!”

Ji Jung-hyun was dazed even after receiving Director Kim Pil-sung’s okay sign.

He hadn’t expected to become so immersed in his role like this.

Originally, Ji Jung-hyun was the type to showcase acting only in a thoroughly calculated manner.

‘But different acting came out… and I even like it.’

Ji Jung-hyun stood there thinking about how he could have showcased such acting.

And he realized.

This kind of acting was the result of being involved in investment and production while sticking close to Director Kim Pil-sung.

Looking at the role with a producer’s mind.

Ji Jung-hyun’s unplanned acting was stemming from here.

‘So acting can develop in this way too.’

Ji Jung-hyun was delighted, feeling that his skills had improved for the first time in a long while.

It felt like pleasure was spreading throughout his body, riding up his spine.

At the same time, although unintended, he felt grateful to Si-joon for helping him gain this realization.

With this new realization, Ji Jung-hyun felt excited and was able to showcase acting better than anything he had shown so far for several days.

It felt like he had wings on his back.

And in the process, he felt a strange sense of discomfort.

‘Huh? Look at this guy?’

It felt like Si-joon was trying something subtly different.

And it soon turned out that it wasn’t just a feeling.

The evidence was that Si-joon was deliberately preparing two different acting styles and experimenting.

‘Is it that their innate talent is different…?’

Ji Jung-hyun thought this, feeling goosebumps at the realization that Si-joon had noticed his change.

At the same time, he even felt a kind of jealousy towards Si-joon, who was already performing at the highest level but still striving to improve.

Ji Jung-hyun was realizing that Si-joon, who had debuted not long ago, was already catching up to him.

But it was only for a moment.

In the end, for to achieve greater success, it was right for Si-joon to develop.

So Ji Jung-hyun decided to help Si-joon.

However, he couldn’t just give him the answer.

Even if he did, he couldn’t be sure if Si-joon could put it into practice.

So Ji Jung-hyun tried to guide Si-joon to realization by occasionally giving him hints.

Watching Si-joon experience consecutive failures in this process, he thought,

‘Even a once-in-a-lifetime genius would find it difficult to gain this realization at once.’

However, a month later,

Ji Jung-hyun had to change his mind.

* * *

Finally, the day dawned, and I moved to the filming location with Yeo Kyung-chan, not too late.

Scene 29 was filmed in a mountain valley.

It was about Yoon Woo-sung and Kim Sung-yeon picking wild vegetables in the mountains to fill their hungry stomachs while hiding from the Japanese army.

Today’s filming could be said to be mainly aimed at shooting a comic scene for the next tension-filled scene.

After this, there would be continuous scenes of encountering the Japanese army in the mountains and engaging in gunfights, which extended all the way to the Daedong River area.

Because of that, there would be nothing but tense scenes to film afterwards.

As such, we absolutely had to make today’s comic scene work.

‘If we can’t make this scene work, the movie might feel a bit boring.’

Ji Jung-hyun and I prepared for the filming with a sense of responsibility.

In the process, Director Kim Pil-sung delivered on-set directions before filming.

“Don’t stick too closely to the script. The goal is to shoot a scene that can make all the audience laugh.”

In the end, it meant that ad-libs were okay as long as they didn’t break the character.

Normally, this would be the kind of on-set direction I would dislike the most.

Ad-libs were difficult to practice in advance with the method mask.

Of course, that didn’t mean it was completely impossible to practice.

It wasn’t hard to see that Scene 29 was a scene where ad-libs were necessary.

Because of that, it was possible to practice acting by predicting what kind of ad-libs might come up.

In fact, I had analyzed what kind of ad-libs Ji Jung-hyun might make and prepared lines to respond to them.

It wasn’t difficult to do if you understood Ji Jung-hyun’s usual acting habits.

There were also parts where you could predict what lines Yoon Woo-sung would naturally say.

But I hadn’t just prepared lines to respond to Ji Jung-hyun’s ad-libs as usual.

I had also prepared ad-libs to reveal my presence.

‘It’s too difficult to reveal my presence by just defending.’

So I needed an ace up my sleeve, and I planned to use it at the right moment.

After receiving the on-set directions, Ji Jung-hyun and I discussed Scene 29 with Director Kim Pil-sung.

It was the stage of discussing roughly how to create the situation and exchange lines.

As mentioned earlier, ad-libs weren’t just thrown out randomly.

It was important to tell the other actor in advance what kind of feeling you would deliver your lines with, so they could prepare.

This was necessary for efficient filming.

It also prevented good ad-libs from being wasted.

If the other actor didn’t respond well, ad-libs usually evaporated on the spot.

Of course, true to the word “ad-lib”,

There were cases where an actor would ad-lib with a sudden idea during filming, and the other actor would respond to it sensibly.

Such lucky cases tended to come with experience and years of practice.

For now, preparing anything increased the possibility of getting a better scene.

“Since it’s a scene about picking wild vegetables, I think it would be good to ad-lib related to that. What do you think?”

Ji Jung-hyun asked, and I nodded.

“I think that would be good too.”

“Good. Then I’ll improvise some lines. Please respond well.”

“Yes, I’ll do that, senior.”

Normally, the conversation would end with this response.

But after finishing my answer, I added one more thing.

“But if it’s okay, would it be alright if I did some ad-libs too?”

Hearing my question, Ji Jung-hyun’s eyes widened in surprise.

“You?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you usually not like doing ad-libs?”

“That’s true. But when I thought about it yesterday, I came up with something that might work.”

I explained to Ji Jung-hyun what kind of ad-libs I was planning to do.

Director Kim Pil-sung, who had been listening to our conversation, clapped his hands with a bright expression.

“Oh! That’s a good idea!”

Ji Jung-hyun also had a smile on his face, seemingly not disliking my idea.

“That’s fine. Let’s try acting that way then.”