The Face Genius Actor

 Episode 109

The beginning of “I Am Not a Villain” was structured as a thriller.

The movie started with a student from Myungsung High School going missing.

The disappearance of ‘Han Ho-hoon’, the son of the foundation’s director, shocked the students of Myungsung High.

It couldn’t be helped.

Han Ho-hoon was famous for being the kindest and most diligent student in the area.

All students liked Han Ho-hoon, who was handsome, rich, from a powerful family, and kind to boot.

It wasn’t just the students.

Even the adults in the area cherished and loved Han Ho-hoon like their own child.

The disappearance of a student who seemed unlikely to have anyone’s grudge against him.

This disappearance shocked the area.

The movie progressed with detective ‘Kang Tae-nam’ pursuing the missing person case.

Kang Tae-nam investigates the case by questioning those around Han Ho-hoon.

Students, teachers, duty drivers, villagers, local officials.

No one knows Han Ho-hoon’s whereabouts.

But the common opinion is that Han Ho-hoon was really a good student and had no reason to commit suicide.

Could this disappearance be…

A murder case due to a grudge against the foundation director?

Investigating this aspect doesn’t yield much.

Rather, the foundation director is a good person contributing to education.

As the case was becoming more complicated,

Kang Tae-nam secures an important testimony.

There’s a story about a slightly suspicious person among Myungsung High students.

However, no one knows their name properly.

Even the teachers only remember the impression of a somewhat gloomy and eerie student.

Kang Tae-nam instinctively realizes that this student is the culprit and starts investigating.

At that time, Han Ho-hoon’s body is found at a local fishing spot, and the flow of the case changes dramatically.

The media criticizes the police for not being able to determine whether this death is murder or suicide, and the pressure intensifies.

Kang Tae-nam pursues the mysterious child, who could be the only suspect, with bloodshot eyes.

In the meantime, he happens to learn that the child’s name is Yoon Se-rang.

Kang Tae-nam immediately rushes to what is supposed to be Yoon Se-rang’s house and encounters a dilapidated house about to collapse.

And there, he receives a phone call from another detective.

-Yoon Se-rang? It shows that the child went missing last year?

But contrary to this truth,

The media is already flooding with articles claiming Yoon Se-rang is the culprit in Han Ho-hoon’s murder case.

* * *

This was the overall flow of “I Am Not a Villain”.

And in this movie, Yoon Se-rang’s death was absolutely unavoidable.

If Yoon Se-rang doesn’t die at the end, my goal of portraying ‘a society where poor children can’t stand’ would be blurred.

For this reason, I couldn’t help but feel puzzled by Director Choi Seo-young’s opinion.

But before that, I had something I wanted to ask Director Choi Seo-young.

“What do you mean you were a child like Yoon Se-rang?”

“It’s exactly as I said. I was desperately poor. And because I was poor, I had to hide myself.”

“So then…”

“Yes. I could relate more to Yoon Se-rang. However, it’s not just because of that that I think Yoon Se-rang should be saved.”

“Then why?”

“I thought Yoon Se-rang should be saved solely for the theme of the movie. If we make Yoon Se-rang a dead child like this, people will forget too easily.”

Certainly, Director Choi Seo-young’s opinion had a point.

If we make Yoon Se-rang a dead person like this, it seemed people would soon forget about children like Yoon Se-rang.

The goal of the movie wasn’t just to shock.

If possible, we needed to give something more than shock and make people act on it.

Even if it was virtually impossible, there was a big difference between trying for it and not trying.

In that sense, “I Am Not a Villain” seemed to be a work lacking such effort.

I felt like I had also chased Yoon Se-rang to the back of the movie, using impossibility as an excuse.

In reality, Yoon Se-rang was a protagonist who never appeared even once, only their name being mentioned.

‘But is it right to completely overturn the flow of the movie because of this?’

I felt my mind becoming complicated.

For this reason, I had to ask Director Choi Seo-young like this.

“Have you thought about how you could save Yoon Se-rang?”

Director Choi Seo-young’s face brightened as if she thought there was hope.

In that state, she started to express her opinion.

“Actually, I also think it’s impossible to completely save Yoon Se-rang. Especially to give a shock at the end, I think it’s right for Yoon Se-rang to be in a missing state.”

“That’s right.”

“So I thought about it, and how about revealing Yoon Se-rang’s daily life like a passing wind in between?”

“Like a passing wind?”

“Yes. After Kang Tae-nam finishes interrogating, someone like Yoon Se-rang appears briefly in the students’ eyes and disappears. Also, when Kang Tae-nam is alone deducing the case and looks to one side, a child like Yoon Se-rang could appear and disappear. As a directorial touch.”

I thought I understood what Director Choi Seo-young was talking about.

She meant to reveal the appearance of a character that feels like Yoon Se-rang in every scene where Yoon Se-rang is mentioned or remembered.

Legs, shoulders, crown of the head, nose, mouth…

It seemed that just by briefly capturing Yoon Se-rang doing some action on screen like this, we could reveal an important theme.

It also seemed like it could have the effect of imprinting Yoon Se-rang’s presence on the audience.

“That’s a good idea.”

“Isn’t it?”

However, I felt a bit unsatisfied.

Because the conclusion that Yoon Se-rang disappears to the back of the movie in a missing state remained unchanged.

‘Isn’t there something we can do in the ending part…’

I naturally started thinking like this.

And then, something came to mind.

“How about we do this?”

So I started explaining my idea to Director Choi Seo-young.

When I finished speaking, Director Choi Seo-young raised her voice.

“It’s perfect! I think we can film it just like that!”

* * *

I met regularly with Director Choi Seo-young to discuss the work.

It felt like we were meeting almost every day of the week, except for one or two days.

But there was no other way to create a good work.

We had to meet diligently, come up with new ideas, and align our opinions.

While exchanging opinions with Director Choi Seo-young,

The casting for “I Am Not a Villain” began.

I was set to play the role of Kang Tae-nam, the protagonist leading “I Am Not a Villain”.

So we had to proceed with casting for other characters.

The key characters in “I Am Not a Villain” were ‘Yoon Se-rang’, ‘Han Ho-hoon’, ‘the Director’, and ‘the Reporter’.

Other roles like students, homeroom teacher, teachers, principal, duty driver, fellow detectives, villagers, local officials, etc., could be cast as minor roles.

‘I’m worried because many people around me are offering to help.’

Actually, the casting itself wasn’t difficult.

While preparing the screenplay for “I Am Not a Villain”, I had contacted almost all the actors around me.

And all these actors promised to make cameo appearances.

I didn’t show them the screenplay expecting cameo appearances, so I was grateful that they volunteered to help so readily.

‘First, I should ask Kyung-mo to play Han Ho-hoon. And ask I-deum to play the reporter…’

In this way, I assigned appropriate roles to actors who promised cameo appearances.

But I couldn’t cast all the people who promised in “I Am Not a Villain”.

Especially in Ji Jung-hyun’s case, there wasn’t a suitable role to ask him.

The only role that fit his age was the Director, but it had too much impact.

I felt that the moment Ji Jung-hyun appeared on screen, it would steal attention away from the content.

In the end, to ask Ji Jung-hyun for a cameo, I would have to give him a role like Kang Tae-nam.

‘But I can’t give Ji Jung-hyun the role of Yoon Se-rang either. The age difference is too big.’

By the way, I showed the screenplay of “I Am Not a Villain” to Ji Jung-hyun and Park Jun, expressing my intention to decline their next projects.

Somehow, it seemed like both of them were considering me for their next projects.

Fortunately, both of them didn’t take offense and respected my decision.

Park Jun answered, “Then you’re not choosing anyone? That’s fine then.”

Ji Jung-hyun replied, “It’s good that you’re not participating in that fool’s stupid plan.”

At this point, I thought it would be nice if these two just had a sparring match instead of bothering with me.

Anyway, I made a list of cameo appearances like this, and then conducted simple auditions with Director Choi Seo-young.

After several days of auditions were all finished, Director Choi Seo-young let out a sigh.

“It’s finally over. I was worried we wouldn’t find a good actor for Yoon Se-rang’s role, but I’m relieved.”

“Yes, it’s really fortunate. It was good to get Senior Cindy’s recommendation.”

The difficulty level of acting for Yoon Se-rang’s role was the highest.

But personally, I felt reluctant to use a well-known actor for this role.

Because Yoon Se-rang was a role representing ‘someone who can’t even dream freely due to poverty’.

So I ran around everywhere to find an actor who had acting skills but wasn’t well-known.

In the midst of this, I was fortunately able to be introduced to a good actor through Cindy.

“Somehow, I felt like Si-joon wouldn’t cast me in ‘I Am Not a Villain’ in any way…”

“I’m sorry, senior.”

“…You’ve already decided to exclude me from the cast. Anyway, I thought that might be the case, so I thought about how I could help, and I remembered an actor perfect for Yoon Se-rang’s role.”

Like Ji Jung-hyun, Cindy was an actor with too much presence.

But “I Am Not a Villain” didn’t need a leading female actor either.

So I had no choice but to exclude Cindy from the cameo list, but I ended up getting help in an unexpected way.

Curious, I asked Cindy a question.

“What kind of actor is it?”

“You know I appeared in a drama that wasn’t a romantic comedy just once before, right? It’s an actor I met then. In a student role.”

Cindy had appeared once in the past in a work called “Alley” which had a solid cult following.

And “Alley” was a work with a similar texture to “I Am Not a Villain”.

Because of that, I was looking forward to seeing what kind of actor would come to the audition.

Fortunately, that actor performed as well as I expected, and with that, we were able to complete the casting for “I Am Not a Villain”.

It was faster than we had worried about.

“Now we just need to notify the audition results, coordinate schedules with the on-site staff, and start filming in earnest.”

I brought this up, and Director Choi Seo-young nodded.

So the filming of “I Am Not a Villain” started from January of the following year.