WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Potter
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Why Do My Dramas Keep Becoming Hits!? ◈
Chapter 46: Fake Madness, Real Madness (7)
──────
When Pyo Won-ho first met Woo Yeon-hee, exactly three names crossed his mind.
Yoo Se-ra. Park Ha-yoon. Moon Gyu-ri.
Yoo Se-ra, the elegant and charming chaebol scion with a screw loose somewhere, full of endearing flaws.
Park Ha-yoon, the pure, fragile first love who never lost their bright smile even in the face of tragedy.
And Moon Gyu-ri, the quintessential romantic-comedy lead who pressed forward with determination and charm despite the harshness of reality.
Woo Yeon-hee had played those roles to perfection.
Was that why?
To viewers, she was remembered more vividly by her characters' names than by Woo Yeon-hee, her real name as an actor.
So much so that when people saw her, many would exclaim, "Oh? It's Park Ha-yoon!" rather than, "Oh? It's Woo Yeon-hee!"
Portraying a particular role so perfectly that it leaves a powerful impression on the public.
For an actor, it was an incomparable honor. But it could also become shackles on their career.
Every script that came afterward offered nothing but similar roles that repeated their established image.
More than anything, actors with an especially strong existing image were often excluded from the top of casting lists because they risked breaking viewers' immersion in their next project.
Even if they were lucky enough to play someone entirely different, viewers would inevitably see them onscreen and think, "Oh, Park Ha-yoon is angry?" or, "Moon Gyu-ri is crying?"
In the end, the public's deeply rooted preconceptions trapped an actor's range within the glory of their past.
For Woo Yeon-hee, those three roles were both her brightest trophies and essential challenges she absolutely had to overcome.
Perhaps until the end of her career as an actor.
But what was this?
At this moment, only one woman was burned into Director Pyo Won-ho's mind.
A woman with red blood dripping from her scraped forehead, wearing a chilling smile.
She was not Park Ha-yoon, Yoo Se-ra, or Moon Gyu-ri.
'Mantis (螳螂).'
A villain completely unlike any role Woo Yeon-hee had played in her life, rotten to the bone.
The horrifying madwoman who had existed only as printed words in the script had naturally taken over her face and stepped into reality.
"Huh..."
Pyo Won-ho had been staring in stunned disbelief when he suddenly flinched and turned his head.
His gaze landed on Ji Yeon-woo, the only person smiling in satisfaction amid this chaotic scene, where everyone else stood frozen in shock.
Pyo Won-ho's pupils trembled as though an earthquake had struck.
'What the hell did that writer see in Woo Yeon-hee?'
Not Gong Myeong-ho, the veteran PD, nor Pyo Won-ho himself, the director, nor even her manager, who had been with her for over a decade, had ever imagined such blue-cold madness within Woo Yeon-hee.
Everyone had scoffed that it would never work, that the role did not suit a melodrama queen.
So how had that writer known?
'Does he really... see something?'
Pyo Won-ho could only laugh hollowly at that bizarre insight, which had unearthed a hidden gem no one else had found.
No, that went beyond insight.
It was madness born from artistic obsession taken to the extreme. The dreadful fixation of someone who would gladly put a druggie or a murderer in front of a camera if they were a perfect match for his role.
Just as he clicked his tongue inwardly while looking at Ji Yeon-woo...
"Ah, ah."
A dull scrape of feedback briefly rang through the silent audition room.
Ji Yeon-woo had turned on the microphone before him and pulled it closer.
In his characteristically calm, peaceful voice, he spoke to Woo Yeon-hee, who still had not emerged from her immersion.
"Thank you for the performance. It was excellent."
A heartfelt compliment.
It was remarkably calm for something said to the actress who had grabbed him by the collar and growled at him as though she would kill him moments earlier.
"However, may I ask you one question that might be rude?"
"...?"
But what came next was...
"You didn't actually take drugs before acting, did you?"
"...?!"
"Well, you know. If that's the case, it puts us in a difficult position too. Anyway, you didn't, right?"
Pyo Won-ho nearly sprayed out the bottled water he had been drinking.
How could he say such insane nonsense straight to the face of an actress who had fallen into ruin over a drug scandal?
Shaking his dizzy head, Pyo Won-ho thought:
'He's worse than an actor... That's the real lunatic.'
If anyone ever called him crazy in the future, he would remember today and firmly tell them to stop talking bullshit.
#
The light from streetlamps rushing past outside cast a chaotic play of light and shadow across Woo Yeon-hee's pale face.
"Hey, Yeon-hee! You were incredible earlier! How did you pull off a performance like that?"
Han Young-soo's voice was full of excitement from behind the wheel. From the moment he left the audition room and got into the van, Han Young-soo had been talking excitedly without pause.
"Did you see the judges' faces? They were so shocked they couldn't say a word! Especially that writer. You heard him compliment you, right? He seemed to think highly of you. Yeon-hee, maybe it's really okay to hope this time!"
But Han Young-soo's excited voice shattered into nothing before it could even reach Woo Yeon-hee's ears.
Her mind was completely filled with thoughts of one man.
Ji Yeon-woo.
'...What kind of person is he?'
When the casting offer first came in, she had been certain.
She thought it was a shallow scheme to use the name value of a disgraced drug actor as a human shield to draw the worst possible backlash.
She had never doubted that she was merely something to be used for publicity, drained of every last drop of value, then discarded without mercy once public opinion became too much to handle.
That was why she had been even more on edge.
Before she could be miserably trampled and mocked, she would sink her teeth in first. Filled with venom from head to toe, she had thrown open the audition room door.
But that was not it.
Just as he had said, he looked only at the acting captured within the frame.
He completely excluded the awful label of drug offender, the public's cruel mockery as it dragged her through the mud, and even the rudeness of her grabbing him by the collar and growling at him as though she would kill him moments ago.
His attitude, as though he did not care at all how wretched the life of Woo Yeon-hee, the person standing before him, had been, and weighed only her worth as a subject within the frame, felt strangely complicated to Woo Yeon-hee.
Then there were those clear, unwavering eyes as he held the microphone and calmly praised her.
Ironically, whenever she met that lens-like gaze, she felt as though she had returned to the distant past.
Before she had been branded with the filthy stigma of being a druggie.
Back when nobody looked at her as though she were some disgusting bug. Back in those glorious days as a top star, when the whole world held its breath, cheered, and became utterly enthralled by the emotions and acting she created.
It felt as though that writer had grabbed her by the collar and forcibly dragged out that dazzling sensation she herself had long forgotten.
"I remember when you won Best Actress at the awards ceremony. Your acceptance speech on stage really stayed with me."
Unconsciously, Woo Yeon-hee tightly gripped her trembling fingertips with her other hand.
A faint, hollow laugh slipped through her pale lips.
'Who does he think he is, being so arrogant...'
Unlike her sharp inner mutter, unfamiliar life had returned to her eyes reflected in the cold window for the first time in a very long while.
She was secretly enjoying the peace that had come to her after years when...
"Um, Yeon-hee...?"
A cautious voice broke through her deep thoughts.
Han Young-soo hesitated, leaving a long pause after starting to speak.
After about five seconds of agonizing hesitation, Han Young-soo finally said what he wanted to say.
"You did quit drugs, right? You really aren't doing them these days, right? Huh?"
"...."
"Ah, ah! I'm not saying I doubt you! Your acting just felt so real. So I was wondering, just in case...!"
An instinctive suspicion so viciously absurd, coming from the same mouth that had just showered her with praise for her wonderful acting.
At that ridiculous contradiction, Woo Yeon-hee let out a short, hollow laugh and turned away from the window.
As heavy silence pressed down on the van, she brushed back her disheveled hair and spoke.
"Shut up and drive before I yank the wheel."
"R-right. Sure! Let's do that!"
#
The fierce auditions came to a successful end, and the outlines of casting for the major roles began to fall into place.
As expected of MBS's ambitious project.
The list was packed, from leads to supporting roles, with formidable actors anyone would recognize by name.
But there was one role.
For Mantis, the drama's central villain and an insane drug kingpin, fierce debate raged day after day.
By the logic of public opinion and capital alone, it was not even a contest worth considering.
Studio Miracle's CEO, the investors supplying the money, and even MBS's senior executives all unanimously opposed Woo Yeon-hee, insisting she absolutely could not be cast.
In particular, Studio Miracle's CEO was openly pushing hard to put Seol Jin-a in the role.
Naturally, that made sense.
From any reasonable point of view, there was not the slightest reason to take on an actress at the center of controversy when they had Seol Jin-a, a risk-free choice with excellent acting skills.
"Come on, this is so frustrating. I'm telling you, it has to be Woo Yeon-hee. She's the core of this drama. What's this nonsense about Seol Jin-a?"
Inside a department head's office at Studio Miracle, Park Ho-seong clutched his throbbing head at Director Pyo Won-ho's whining.
"What did I do in a past life to end up meeting a bastard like you...?"
"Hm. You were probably a general. Some Mongolian general, maybe. Your face looks exactly like one."
"...."
He could not even be bothered to play along anymore.
Park Ho-seong put Pyo Won-ho's useless words aside and focused on the point.
"Woo Yeon-hee... Woo Yeon-hee... Haah, Won-ho. Are you seriously saying this?"
"Did I come all this way to see your face just to trade jokes? I don't want to be that close to you, Department Head."
"Stop talking nonsense, you punk."
Just a few days ago, Pyo Won-ho had been the one firmly declaring that he could never work with a druggie.
What had gotten into him that he was changing his tune as easily as flipping his hand over?
Park Ho-seong could only laugh in disbelief.
"Anyway, no means no. And weren't you the one insisting you couldn't shoot with a druggie? Has my memory deteriorated that much already?"
"Come on, people's hearts are like reeds. Isn't that why you had a huge fight with your loving wife and got divorced too, Department Head?"
"You little bastard, won't you shut up?"
"I'm joking, I'm joking. Anyway, can't you do something? The CEO listens to you like you're a god."
"Like hell they do! Hey, the investors are raising hell, saying they'll pull every last bit of funding if we cast Woo Yeon-hee. That's why the CEO is openly pushing Seol Jin-a. Say something that makes sense! Tsk!"
At Park Ho-seong's shout, veins bulging in his neck, Pyo Won-ho rose from his seat.
He put on his outerwear and answered indifferently.
"You really are scared of everything. No wonder your wife lost interest and ran away."
"Y-you bastard! You keep crossing the line, huh?! There is a limit to how much I'll put up with!"
Park Ho-seong's face turned bright red as he fumed, looking ready to throw a file folder at him.
But Pyo Won-ho did not even listen. He spun around and strode toward the door.
Park Ho-seong shouted at that infuriating back.
"Hey! Where are you going now, you little shit?"
"The CEO is in their office right now, right?"
"...? What? Hey, hey! Don't tell me!"
"I heard the CEO has been showing signs of low blood pressure lately. I should treat that while I can. It's been a while since I raised the CEO's blood pressure."
Without leaving any time to stop him, Pyo Won-ho opened the meeting room door and strode out.
Bang!
Staring blankly at the closed door, Park Ho-seong let out a laugh of disbelief and muttered:
"...That bastard."
Why had he come back even crazier?
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
