I Spent a Night with a Top Star Actress Chapter 41 - Threats.

My morning greeting froze Team 3’s road managers solid.

I watched, unhurried, and thought:

‘Who should I start with?’

If it were up to my temper, I’d grill them one by one.

But I didn’t want to waste my energy first thing in the morning either.

It was a good day. No need to stress myself out more than once, right?

So I decided to go with the most efficient method.

Grill the ringleader who’d led the trash talk about me.

Naturally, my eyes landed on Team 3’s Chief Lee Jae-min.

“Chief Lee Jae-min.”

“!”

“I heard you’ve had a lot of complaints about me, behind my back.”

I smiled, wide.

“I’m curious what exactly you didn’t like. Mind telling me?”

Chief Lee Jae-min’s face went pale.

Maybe it was the heat, but cold sweat was beading on his forehead.

His lips worked for a while before he started stammering out excuses.

“No, that’s, Chief Kwon. I didn’t mean it that way, there must be some kind of misunderstanding…”

A misunderstanding?

I doubt it.

It’s hard to call it a misunderstanding when you were tearing into me that hard.

I smiled again.

This time all the way up to my eyes.

“Know your place.”

“!”

“You said I don’t know my place, didn’t you?”

Chief Lee Jae-min’s shoulders jerked.

Meanwhile, my mouth started tap-dancing.

“But isn’t it you who doesn’t know your place, Chief Lee Jae-min?”

“… What did you say?”

“Actor Choi Ji-hoon, last year he took the lead role in that drama you insisted on, and it flopped hard, didn’t it?”

“!”

“So I heard actor Choi Ji-hoon still hasn’t landed another project because of it. Am I wrong?”

Chief Lee Jae-min’s mouth flapped open and shut like a goldfish.

Had I pushed too hard?

A flicker of regret came over me, but when I thought back to the trash talk I’d overheard, I figured I could push this far.

So I just pushed harder.

“If you’re going to use actor Choi Ji-hoon like that, just hand him to me.”

“!”

“I don’t force actors into projects and wreck their filmography, unlike some people.”

“Ch, Chief Kwon!”

“Yes, go ahead.”

Chief Lee Jae-min’s face flared up like an active volcano.

The face that had been pale a moment ago had turned the color of a roasted tomato.

His face said he had plenty he wanted to say…

but maybe because he had a guilty conscience, he just glared at me, murder in his eyes.

I took my time enjoying the sight, then gave a small bow.

“Thanks to Team 3’s family here, I’m leaving with a good lesson learned. Have a good one.”

I gave Chief Lee Jae-min’s shoulder a light tap and walked past.

Team 3’s road managers stabbed the back of my head with looks sharp as awls.

I let out a hollow laugh without meaning to.

‘Guess I turned an incident into an accident.’

But I wasn’t particularly worried.

If anything, it felt like a bit of fresh tension had blown into a life that had gone a little slack.

‘So I only succeeded because of Lee Ha-eun?’

Yeah, I won’t deny it.

It’s true I benefited from Lee Ha-eun.

But there are fools out there who get handed the same opportunity and still can’t make use of it.

Chief Lee Jae-min a moment ago was exactly that.

Hearing a fool like that call me someone riding Lee Ha-eun’s coattails… it makes me want to prove him wrong, no?

Prove that my success isn’t because of Lee Ha-eun.

And right on cue, a chance to prove my ability was right around the corner.

“The Busan International Film Festival.”

A Best New Actor award at Korea’s biggest film festival ought to be enough to prove what I could do, right?

---

I checked the calendar, tapping my fingers on the table.

“Timing’s good.”

I had about a week free coming up.

The Priest in Black reading was at the end of this month.

Twenty’s Star Watch! live broadcast was in two weeks.

If I was going to attend the Busan International Film Festival, now was the right time.

‘I should start paying attention to Choi Go-eun too, before long.’

With Lee Ha-eun joining The Priest in Black, Choi Go-eun had been left hanging in midair.

It felt like a waste to let her acting talent go to rot, and the Best New Actor title at the Busan International Film Festival, the one she should’ve been getting, kept nagging at me too.

It would be too much of a shame to let a title like Best New Actor at the Busan International Film Festival slip away as it stood.

Once I made up my mind, my head started spinning fast for the first time in a while.

‘Three months at most until the Busan International Film Festival opens.’

Given the timeline, making a feature-length or independent film was out of the question.

‘So that leaves a short film.’

Honestly, even a short film’s production schedule would be pretty tight given the time left.

Still, I had no intention of rushing.

‘All I actually know right now is that Choi Go-eun wins the Best New Actor title at the Busan International Film Festival.’

Beyond that one fact, I didn’t know the script, the director, or even the title of the work.

In other words, if I rushed and something went wrong, I could end up losing the Best New Actor title she was supposed to get.

The corner of my mouth curled up.

“This is starting to get fun.”

A reasonable amount of hardship and struggle stirred up my fighting spirit.

I moved the mouse and pulled up the scenario bank site run by the Korea Film Council.

It was a site where writers and directors somewhere between amateur and professional submitted short-film scripts.

Dozens, hundreds of unproven works lined up in front of my eyes.

“Five hundred short scripts, not counting the independent ones…”

Normally, I’d rather pick from scripts already inside Baekhak Entertainment that had been through at least one filter.

But there was no way a company like Baekhak would have short-film scripts lying around, let alone independent ones.

In other words, if I wanted a short-film script, I’d have to sort the gems out of the hundreds sitting in front of me right now.

I scratched my chin, slow.

“Huh. Brings back old memories.”

I don’t know about other managers, but I’m a pro in this field.

Back when I was a first-year road manager, I wanted to prove myself, so I memorized an entire quarter’s worth of scripts by heart.

And now, the time had come to put that skill to use.

I moved the mouse and started sorting through more than 500 scripts.

I set up a first filter by title and synopsis, then pulled out only the ones with a clear theme from what remained.

Fifty scripts made it through the first and second filters.

I split each one into a beginning, middle, and end, and skimmed through mainly the highlight parts.

From those, I picked out the ones I liked and read them again, fast.

Three days like that.

I went back and forth between the office and home doing nothing but reading scripts.

On the second day my mind started going hazy, but I fought through it and managed to pull out four scripts in the end.

They were the decent ones among scripts written by directors and writers somewhere between amateur and pro.

I picked up the one that stood out most among those four scripts.

“The title’s Multicultural…”

A script with content as striking as its title.

Choi Ji-seon, a high school girl born into a multicultural family.

It was a script that laid bare the life of a high school girl with different skin color and ethnicity, living in a country called Korea.

What struck me most out of everything, though.

“This is exactly Choi Go-eun’s image, isn’t it?”

The Choi Go-eun I had in mind and Choi Ji-seon, the lead of Multicultural, fit together like a perfect match.

---

Even though I was too busy to call often, I’d been managing Choi Go-eun whenever I got the chance.

She grumbled with her mouth, but she seemed to not actually mind my attention, and followed along better than I expected.

As proof, her skin and hair, once a wreck, had been tidied up nicely, so she must have been diligent about the care I’d told her to get.

Of course, her signature attitude was still exactly the same.

“Chief, you are my manager, right?”

“Where’s that coming from all of a sudden?”

“You said you’d manage me, and this is you contacting me two weeks later?”

Hm.

Nothing to say to that.

I’d sworn up and down I wouldn’t neglect her, then went and tuned her out completely.

I took Choi Go-eun to a café to shut her grumbling mouth up.

“I’ll treat you as an apology, so order whatever you want.”

“Are you seriously trying to settle this with coffee?”

“That’s not allowed?”

“… I can add toppings, right?”

“Drinks have toppings?”

“Chief, are you from the Joseon Dynasty or something?”

“Isn’t it weird to put toppings on a drink?”

Instead of answering, Choi Go-eun started punching away at the kiosk.

Curious what she was so busy tapping, I leaned in, and Choi Go-eun’s drink order came out to over ten thousand won.

Wait, is this even right?

If it’s going to cost this much, wouldn’t a bowl of gukbap be the better deal?

I didn’t get it, but I didn’t want to hear “are you from the Joseon Dynasty” again, so I paid quietly.

Choi Go-eun, sucking away at what looked like a mint-chocolate calorie bomb, gave a small bow of her head.

“Thank you, Chief.”

So spending money is what finally gets a nice word out of that mouth.

I shook my head and went back into the meeting room.

I pulled out the four scripts I’d spent three days preparing.

“What’s this?”

“Scripts that might end up being your next project, Choi Go-eun-ssi.”

“!”

For a moment, Choi Go-eun’s eyes flashed cold.

That shift pulled the corner of my mouth up.

“You can read now, right?”

“Right now?”

“Yeah. I just want to get a feel for it, so don’t get too tense.”

I picked up one of the four scripts and handed it over.

Coincidence or fate, it was the Multicultural script.

The moment Choi Go-eun opened the Multicultural script, the sharp edge that usually sat on her face melted away.

Her face, empty of any expression, looked like a shriveled wax doll, and it gave me a bit of a chill.

How long had it been like that?

Choi Go-eun asked, her voice a little hoarse.

“I just play the lead, Choi Ji-seon?”

I nodded.

The moment I did, Choi Go-eun became Choi Ji-seon without any warning.

“I’m an outcast. For the crime of being born into a multicultural family.”

“!”

Goosebumps ran up my skin.

I rubbed my arm, the fine hairs standing up, and kept watching Choi Go-eun act.

It hadn’t even been thirty minutes since she picked up the script, and there was Choi Go-eun, nailing every beat of the ostracized Choi Ji-seon’s emotional arc.

A hollow laugh escaped me.

‘This kid… whatever else she is, her acting is the real thing.’

But isn’t method acting usually something that comes out of bleeding effort and study?

How was Choi Go-eun pulling off acting like that so easily?

‘This is outside common sense.’

And people outside common sense like this, the world calls them…

Geniuses.

Meanwhile, having finished the Choi Ji-seon scene, Choi Go-eun tossed a question at me.

“How was it, Chief?”

I cleared my throat.

Should I praise her? Or act indifferent?

Her acting itself was outstanding, but Choi Go-eun’s personality was what worried me.

If I built her up, she’d get insufferably arrogant.

So I just dangled the carrot around, this way and that.

“It’s decent. How was the script?”

Choi Go-eun gave a pouty smile.

“It’s fun.”

“You like it?”

“Yeah. I like the character Choi Ji-seon too.”

“There are other scripts too, so take your time looking them over.”

My body leaned forward.

I’d tried to hide it, but my body, burning up from Choi Go-eun’s absurd acting, moved on its own.

My eyes had already started flickering with hunger.

“We’ll go with whichever script you pick, Choi Go-eun-ssi, so look them over and give me an answer by tomorrow.”

I started thinking I wanted to raise this genius properly, with my own two hands.

---

The next day.

I got a call from Choi Go-eun.

[“Chief, I read through all the scripts, and Multicultural was the best one.”]

The corner of my mouth curled up.

Choi Go-eun.

Turns out her eye for scripts is a bit like mine.

Because out of the four scripts, I’d thought Multicultural suited Choi Go-eun best too.

Just then, an unexpected line came out of Choi Go-eun’s mouth.

[“Choi Ji-seon feels kind of similar to me too. Anyway, I think it’d be fun to play her.”]

The offhand remark struck my ear like lightning.

I answered, working to keep the surprise on my face out of my voice.

“Then I’ll push for Multicultural as your next project, Go-eun-ssi. Sound good?”

[“Yeah.”]

“I’ll call you again once I know how it goes.”

[“Okay. But, Chief…”]

“Yeah?”

[“Um…”]

“?”

[“Thank… you.”]

The call cut off, abrupt.

I blinked and stared for a moment at my phone, its screen gone black.

“… Did a thank-you just come out of that kid’s mouth?”

But why get all shy over just one thank-you?

It was so absurd I let out a short laugh.

‘Man, not a single normal one among the actors I’ve got.’

There must be normal actors out there somewhere…

So why do actors like this keep flocking to me of all people?

I shook my head and muttered.

“Well, both Choi Go-eun and I picked this script, but…”

is Multicultural really the script that gets Choi Go-eun the Best New Actor title?

The feeling was good, but I had no certainty.

Multicultural was the best script out of five hundred short scenarios, sure, but that was only among works written by writers and directors somewhere between amateur and pro.

Whether Multicultural would actually hold up at an awards show like the Busan International Film Festival… was still an unknown.

‘Not easy. Once I meet the director and get into production, there’s no pulling out.’

What a shame.

If I’d had a little more time, I could have taken my time choosing from a wider range of options.

‘I wish I had a bit more certainty, that’s all.’

…Ugh.

I hate this kind of indecisiveness in myself, but maybe it’s because Choi Go-eun’s Best New Actor title is riding on it.

I keep hesitating without meaning to.

Because my choice right now could be the reason Choi Go-eun ends up not getting that Best New Actor title.

‘What’s it doing at a time like this? The text from the future?’

The thing that used to come flying in just fine, why’s it been so quiet lately?

Hm?

Shouldn’t it show up right about now and give me some certainty?

Just then, an unfamiliar hand grabbed my shoulder without warning.

I startled and turned around, and Seo Tae-jun, the crown prince of thriller, was glaring at me, eyes narrowed.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Chief?”

My eyes went wide.

“Tae-jun-ssi, why are you here?”

“Why do you think. Our Chief wasn’t picking up his phone, so I came looking in person.”

“… Uh. Tae-jun-ssi.”

“Yeah. Go ahead, make your excuse.”

“I’ve been a little busy.”

“Busy enough to ghost an actor who’s in the middle of a project?”

“I told you, I was out shooting a variety show.”

“What, did you fly overseas or something? Been shooting a variety show all week straight?”

Seo Tae-jun plopped down next to me.

Naturally, this self-absorbed man had come without a hat again today.

Gleaming.

Seo Tae-jun’s head, shining like polished jade, started pulling the eyes of every manager nearby.

I hauled the sitting Seo Tae-jun up and shoved him into the meeting room.

“Sorry. It’s not that I didn’t want to call you.”

“You could’ve at least told me you cast actor Lee Ha-eun, couldn’t you?”

“I’ve got no excuse, even with ten mouths.”

Seo Tae-jun crossed his arms.

“Why did it have to be Lee Ha-eun, of all people?”

“What?”

“No, I mean, all the attention that should’ve been on me. Actress Lee Ha-eun’s taken it all now, hasn’t she?”

… Ah.

That was what he was mad about?

Meanwhile Seo Tae-jun started grumbling, like he genuinely wasn’t happy about it.

“Haah… I went and worked up the nerve to shave my head half off, and there’s just the one article about it. Is that right, Chief?”

“…”

“And on top of that, looking at you, Chief, it’s like all your attention’s on Lee Ha-eun too. That kind of hurts, you know?”

Hm.

Turns out there were two things he was mad about.

My attention, and Lee Ha-eun.

But this one… was entirely my fault.

Things had suddenly gotten urgent, so I’d paid comparatively less attention to Seo Tae-jun, who was on the safer side of things.

‘Maybe I should ask for more road managers.’

Feels like I’m starting to run short on hands.

I’ll probably need to talk to Team Leader Ma Seok-du about… huh?

My eyes went round and my mouth fell open.

“… Tae-jun-ssi.”

“Yeah?”

“Want to look at a script?”

“A script, out of nowhere?”

“Just take a look and tell me what you think first?”

“?”

At my sudden request, Seo Tae-jun tilted his head.

In the meantime, I hurried to find the Multicultural script and handed it to Seo Tae-jun.

Seo Tae-jun’s eyebrows twitched.

“What, it’s a short film?”

“Yeah. Just give me your gut read.”

“… You’re not seriously telling me to take a short film role, are you?”

“Of course not. I just want to hear how it strikes you, Tae-jun-ssi.”

Seo Tae-jun tilted his head again, but he went ahead and read through the Multicultural script.

Watching him, my heart started pounding.

How long had it been?

Seo Tae-jun’s mouth opened.

“Ugh.”

“!”

“Wait… what is this script?”

…Ha!

Goosebumps broke out over my whole body, and a thrill spread through me.

Meanwhile Seo Tae-jun frowned and grumbled.

“I’ve never in my life read a script this boring.”

At Seo Tae-jun’s harsh review, I finally burst out with a cry of triumph!

‘Our Tae-jun-ssi, reliable as ever.’

Seo Tae-jun, human script-detector.

His words made me sure of it.

Multicultural is the script that gets Choi Go-eun her Best New Actor title!

---

Kim Jun-su, a fourth-year theater and film major at Hanguk University, was an ordinary college student on the verge of graduating.

The film that moved him most was Parasite.

His favorite actress was Lee Ha-eun.

Like the ordinary college student he was, he was an ordinary aspiring film director you could find anywhere.

But right now… the top-star actress he wanted to someday cast as his lead, no matter what.

Lee Ha-eun’s former manager was standing right in front of him.

‘Ch, Chief Kwon Chan…?’

Baekhak Management Team 5’s Chief Kwon Chan.

A manager fairly well-regarded among Lee Ha-eun’s fans.

For one thing, he’d had the longest tenure of any of Lee Ha-eun’s former managers, and he was the one who’d recommended Queen of Joseon, one of the standout titles even in her glittering filmography.

Of course, that was just the image of Baekhak Management Team 5’s Chief Kwon Chan as seen by an ordinary college student who liked Lee Ha-eun.

Seen through the eyes of aspiring film director Kim Jun-su, Baekhak Team 5’s Chief Kwon Chan was…

a big shot hard even to make eye contact with.

And now that big shot was smiling wide, making him an offer.

“Let’s work together, Director.”

Maybe it was his cold impression.

Or maybe it was the title of being Baekhak’s up-and-coming manager?

His mouth was smiling, but it didn’t feel like a smile.

So to ordinary college student Kim Jun-su’s ears, that offer just now had sounded like a threat.

A threat demanding he hand over his work.

“You’ll join us, won’t you, Director Kim Jun-su?”

Director Kim Jun-su squeezed his eyes shut.

‘This isn’t me imagining things, this really is a threat!’

What kind of manager makes a collaboration offer with a smile that murderous?

Cold sweat began breaking out down the back of ordinary aspiring film director Kim Jun-su, threatened by a big-shot manager.