Thinking about the role he'd been stressed about, Mok Du-ho sighed.
His friend, Eom Shin-il was a smart person and so was his wife. That should mean that their child was smart too, no?
If that's the case then why not?
Why not take a gamble and spend some time seeing if the kid has what it takes to get the role that was now opened up?
"Alright fine. I have some free time at 5 PM. Bring your kid to the address I'm going to send to your phone. Remember, it depends on how your son does. I can't guarantee this will amount to anything. You might just be wasting your time," Mok Du-ho warned Shin-il.
" That's okay. Thank you for the opportunity. That's more than enough. We'll see you in a few hours."
The director of the film had left all the casting decisions to him so even if he brought a complete rookie to the scene, he wouldn't get punished for it as long as the rookie didn't disappoint.
Hanging up the phone, Mok Du-ho wondered if he was making a mistake spending precious time doing this when he could be contacting the runner-ups from before. But it was too late now. There was no way he was going to go back on his words so easily.
"It's all up to you kid," Mok Du-ho muttered, referring to Eom Jae-hwa who he hadn't met yet.
***
The film Mok Du-ho was the casting director for was called "Before the Dawn" which was a play on the phrase "darkest before the dawn."
The male protagonist is a retired police officer who lost his family due to a criminal getting revenge after getting arrested by him. The story starts very mundane as it goes through his day-to-day life which is mainly just sitting in his bathtub crying as the shower runs.
However, when he stumbles upon the dead body of one of the victims of the serial killer, dubbed "The Masked Phantom", he becomes involved in the criminal world again as a suspect because all of the victims are linked to the murder of his family many years ago.
The story is about him proving his innocence and catching the real serial killer, locking him away.
"The role you'll be auditioning for is 'Child Han Shik'," Mok Du-ho informed Eom Jae-hwa who had arrived with his father.
The three of them were in an unused room at the building where Mok Du-ho worked.
Jae-hwa had the script in his hand, reading the scenes where Child Han Shik was present. He already received a general overview of the story from the casting director so he knew what sort of tone and genre the story was about.
"Tell me whenever you're ready to go," Mok Du-ho said.
Even though he was young, Jae-hwa's experience from the fragments of memories from the old man and his naturally gifted brain helped him understand the words he was reading in the script as well as the deeper parts that weren't explicitly stated in the writing.
Mok Du-ho observed the child sitting in front of him and he couldn't help but wonder if he was actually seven. The intense look on his face reminded him of an adult and for a split second, he saw the glimpse of an old man behind Jae-hwa.
'I must be getting senile from old age,' Mok Du-ho who was rubbing his eyes sighed even though he was still in his 30s.
Once he finished reading, Eom Jae-hwa placed the script down.
'He's already done reading?'
Jae-hwa asked Mok Du-ho, "Mister, is there a video I can watch of the actor playing the role of the adult Han Shik?"
"Is there a reason you need it?" asked Mok Du-ho, assuming that Eom Jae-hwa was struggling with understanding who the character was so he was trying to receive some help from reference.
Disappointed, Mok Du-ho's little expectation was ready to dissipate.
"Although I understand this role I'm playing, I can only act out my interpretation of him. If I saw how the actor played the adult version, I think I'd be able to portray the subtle hints that led this child to become who he became better," Jae-hwa answered.
"Are you saying that you're capable of playing two different versions of this character?" asked Mok Du-ho, intrigued if this child was boosting empty words or if he genuinely was capable of doing it.
Eom Jae-hwa nodded his head.
In his past life, he had read and practiced so many roles that didn't belong to him as a means of practice. Although Eom Jae-hwa wasn't able to remember the minute details of everything, the experience was engraved inside his heart and soul.
"How have you digested the character this fast?" asked Mok Du-ho.
"I... I don't know," Jae-hwa responded truthfully. "It might just be empty words from me," he chuckled. "But... I think I've captured who the child version of Han Shik is. Depending on instructions, I'll be able to tweak some mannerisms to better suit what you need and looking for."
'Better suit what I need? W-what is this kid talking about?'
What he was saying wasn't rare; most child actors were able to do the same with the roles that they've played.
The only difference between them and Eom Jae-hwa was that this was his first time reading the script in his hands; Mok Du-ho knew this for a fact because the script was only given out to agencies and unless his friend was lying about his son not being signed to any agency and this being his first time auditioning for any role before, Jae-hwa had no way of receiving the script in advance.
That meant that Jae-hwa only took a few minutes and had managed to capture who the character was — if he was telling the truth.
"How about this? Let's have you just play the character based on your interpretation first since that's what the other children did. Then I'll show you a video of how Seung Mal-Chin played the adult version of the role and you can base your portrayal on that. How does that sound?" he asked the child.
"Sure," Jae-hwa responded as he got off the chair.
Mok Du-ho watched as the face of the child in front of him slowly transitioned from Eom Jae-hwa to someone new, someone a little more twisted in the head, a few screws missing — Han Shik.
"...Uh," he was a little baffled by the sudden change and how the atmosphere in the room suddenly dropped. "Let's... let's do Act 2 Scene 3."
***
The student was confused as he looked at Han Shik who was kneeling by himself in the corner while everyone was playing on the playground.
He waved and yelled at Han Shik, "Han Shik, why aren't you playing with us? Come on!"
There was no response from Han Shik so the student decided to walk closer and see what had him so distracted. As he got closer he saw Han Shik pressing the floor with his thumb and when he lifted the thumb, there was this black spot on it.
When he was close enough to see what was going on clearly, the student stopped in his tracks, his jaw dropped to the floor.
"H-H-Han Shik. Wha-what are you doing?" he asked.
"Hmm?" muttered Han Shik, finally realizing that someone had been calling him. He turned to look at the student with this look of innocence on his face.
If you didn't see what he was doing, you'd think that this was just a regular child who had been doing regular children's activities.
"What are you doing to those ants!?" the student screamed which got the attention of the other students.
Han Shik looked at the student and then looked over at the crowd in the distance whose attention was one by one being drawn to him.
Reading the expression of the student before him, Han Shik realized that what he was doing was "wrong" so he wiped off the crushed bits and pieces of the ants that he had been squashing with his thumb with his shirt.
Standing up, he said with a gentle smile, "What was I doing?"
"Y-you were squashing those ants with your thumb!" the student screamed.
It was one thing to kill ants and stomp them with your shoes, but it was another story to kill them one by one with your thumb with a huge grin on your face.
Han Shik's smile slightly quivered and slowly became a frown. "I don't appreciate false accusations," he responded.
"False accusations? What are you talking about!?"
Before the others could reach them, the gaze in Han Shik's eyes intensified for a split second. It was a very short moment but the chills that shot up the student's spine, made him walk back a few steps and stammer with his words.
It was like an invisible entity was choking his neck.
***
"Alright that's enough," said Mok Du-ho who had played the role of the student to the best of his ability with his very flawed acting.
It was just acting, make-belief, lines of a script — and yet, Jae-hwa had managed to instill real fear and uncomfortableness in him.
'This... this is acting. Yes. This is what I have been waiting for.'
If he was alone in the room, Mok Du-ho was prepared to jump around, cheering as the universe had granted him a gift right when he desperately needed it.
He was prepared to stop everything and give Jae-hwa the job, sign the contract, and everything but he held back and took a deep breath.
"How was it?" asked Shin-il who had been watching in the corner of the room; he was impressed by his son's acting but he couldn't tell if that was because of his rose-tinted glasses or if it was real.
"That was good," Mok Du-ho said, undercutting the performance a little bit because he didn't want to boost the ego of the child. There's always room for improvement and he knew from first-hand experience that many child actors fail to continue growing because they were talented when they were younger and believed that there was no need to work on their craft any further, making them complacent and eventually, stagnant.
"I liked the look you gave me at the end," he told Eom Jae-hwa who was listening to his words carefully.
"Then does that mean my son has the role?" asked Eom Shin-il who felt as if he was the one who had won the lottery instead of Jae-hwa.
"Maybe. But first, Eom Jae-hwa, let's have you watch the video as originally planned. Then give me your second performance based on that."
Jae-hwa nodded his head and after watching how Seung Mal-chin played the role of the adult Han Shik, he inserted the information into the system and profile he had created in his head of the character, and slowly, the two of them merged into one.
'A little less psychotic. A little more sociopathic,' Jae-hwa concluded.
***
The difference between the two performances was very minimal and if you were to be shown them out of order, you wouldn't be able to easily tell which one was the "improved" version.
However, as someone familiar with the script and knew almost everything about the characters he had to cast actors in, Mok Du-ho could barely contain his smile. He was a minute away from falling to his knees and praying to the heavens for the blessing he received. He was prepared to commit a hundred good deeds to pay back the favor.
As he was discussing the contract with Eom Shin-il, he saw in the corner of his eyes, Eom Jae-hwa who was still watching the video of the adult Han Shik. He was muttering something to himself.
Mok Du-ho turned to his friend and asked, "How long has your son been into acting?"
"My son? Hmm... I don't know. He's never really been into movies. He's more of a book reader like myself. But, a week ago, he told me that he wanted to become an actor and after discussing it with myself and his mother, we understood that he wasn't joking about it," Shin-il answered. He, himself, was still confused about what brought this change in his son.
But it seemed to be a positive change as it was bringing Jae-hwa out of his shell and away from the pages of his books so he didn't feel inclined to stop it.
"So this is a new passion of his," Mok Du-ho muttered under his breath, watching as Jae-hwa kept reading a specific scene over and over.
'Is that child one of those geniuses who when they've found their passion, they become obsessed over it?' he wondered.
There were not many children who acted like Jae-hwa. Most of them just read the script, did what they were required to do, and then moved on because they'd rather be having fun doing something else instead.
It felt a little premature to call Eom Jae-hwa a genius especially when his performance was still in the realm of humans. Some acting performances were so good that Mok Du-ho could only describe them as godly; Jae-hwa's portrayal of Han Shik wasn't one of them — yet.
Eom Jae-hwa continued to read the script and watch the video of Seung Mal-chin's performance that was shared on his father's phone over and over on the car ride home.
Shin-il asked him a few questions here and there but Jae-hwa was so focused on studying the character that it took a few tries to get his attention.
"Hahaha," he chuckled to himself softly as he watched his son whisper a line to himself then shook his head in disappointment before repeating the line again and again and again and again until he finally nodded in satisfaction.
Truthfully, he'd rather have his son become interested in sports and his school work because he felt that the two would be more beneficial for his future since that was the path that he took to get to where he was now. But just because that was the path for him, that didn't make it the correct path for his son.
"Whatever he decides to do, as long as he's happy about it, we should support him," was what his wife told him the night that Jae-hwa told the family that he wanted to become an actor.
It was these words that led him to call up his friend who was a casting director.
Seeing the smile on Jae-hwa's face as he felt joy from success in the experiments he was doing with his facial expressions, although it felt a little creepy due to the character it was portraying, Eom Shin-il felt that his wife's words were correct as they usually were.
Seeing him happy made him happy.
'As long as he's happy.'
***
Eom Jae-hwa was in his bedroom, rereading the script for the millionth time. Even though it was the same as the previous times, he was still having fun reading the lines.
Jae-hwa couldn't properly explain what had inspired him to make this drastic change in his life; neither could the rest of his family.
There was a knock on his door.
"Enter," he permitted while flipping to the next page.
It was his sister, Eom Sun-hi who walked over to him and loomed over his shoulder, looking down at what he was reading.
"Is that the script of the movie you're going to be in?" she asked.
"Yes!" Jae-hwa responded cheerily. The look on his face was so bright that Sun-hi felt the urge to grab sunglasses to protect her eyes.
Over the past week, she's asked her little brother on numerous occasions why he wanted to become an actor, and every time, his answer was very vague and sometimes, he just shrugged his shoulders.
She came into his room to check up on him but seeing how happy he was, she just sighed and ran her hands through his hair before leaving the room.