A Woman of a Thousand Faces

Scratching at the patchy stubble on his chin, screenwriter Yang Bo-hyeon sat at his office desk filling in a casting board.

"Hmm. The villain is the one that matters."

The role called for a culprit who, wearing an ordinary, kindly face, would stand at the protagonist's side and deceive them from within. The lead had long since been reserved for Seong Jin-ung — after all, Yang had written the script around him as the protagonist, and the actor had even tossed in ideas of his own. Seong Jin-ung had readily agreed, too: who else could play it but me?

"A rookie? A fresh face would be just right."

He wanted an actor who hadn't yet been pinned down by any one image. Only then would the character of Choi Mi-so land with real shock. But Seong Jin-ung was an actor in his early forties with a weighty presence, whose acting slid into place as naturally as a sly old snake gliding through the grass. In film, he had a record of driving ten-million-viewer blockbusters; in drama, viewers queued up to swear that if Seong Jin-ung was in it, they'd watch it on trust alone....

"A rookie opposite him, though... that's a stretch."

With a sharp hiss of breath, Writer Yang clicked his tongue — a hard, metallic tsk. Acting lived and died on the back-and-forth. Unless someone had nerves of steel or a veteran's mileage, playing the villain against Seong Jin-ung would be an uphill climb. Every so often a rookie genius like that did appear, but... well.

In his new work, Whistle, the villain toyed with the protagonist from the first page to the last. A greenhorn wouldn't do. This was no simple supporting villain; this was a second lead, standing shoulder to shoulder with the protagonist. If he had to coach someone all the way down to how they'd read on camera, he might well collapse from the stress himself.

Should he choose from among experienced unknowns, then? Who was out there? Plenty of actors delivered solid, natural performances. But the skilled supporting players had already passed through this production and that one, their images worn thin from overuse. If he wanted a fresh face, that meant a newcomer after all.

Letting out a short sigh, Writer Yang raked a hand through his hair and picked up his phone.

"Ugh, damn it. Let's take five."

Grind away at a problem too long and the brain simply stops turning over. He opened Nootube and made a brief attempt at escaping reality, chuckling as he sampled one funny short after another — until he stumbled onto shorts from The Terms of Inheritance, a drama that had just finished its run.

Baek Ga-yoon, an actress who had debuted as a child, was performing with a radiant smile. Honestly, casting an actress famous for good-girl roles as the villain might work rather nicely.

"Hmm. Still... not this one."

Her character left much to be desired, and she was notorious for refusing to listen to writers or directors alike. Tsk.

"Hold on. Wasn't she in one of my projects? What was her name again?"

An actress who shared Baek Ga-yoon's name — Ga-yoon — and had played a minor supporting part in his work six years ago. Her acting had left a deep impression. A flawlessly clear face and enormous eyes, and the light inside them carried a presence that filled the whole frame. What had astonished him even more was the delicacy of her craft: for the sake of the piece, she could scale that presence up or down to fit each role. He'd been certain she would rise fast, but when no news of her followed, she'd slipped his mind. Then, by chance, he'd spotted her face in a press conference video for The Terms of Inheritance.

"Jung. That was her surname, right?"

He set the phone down, opened a search portal on his laptop, and typed in Jung Ga-yoon's name. Her filmography unspooled in one long column.

"Huh? What? That part in Code Blue — that was Jung Ga-yoon?"

And that wasn't all. Every supporting actor he'd privately rated as a cut above — in film and drama alike — turned out to be her.

"Unbelievable. 'Chameleon' doesn't even cover it. She's a woman of a thousand faces — a literal thousand faces."

Every role made her seem like a different person entirely. She had a lovely face, and yet on screen that prettiness never announced itself; instead she simply became the part — a real, plausible human being who could have lived just down the street.

No, wait — how was this possible? Someone who acted this well had gone this far unnoticed?

"Which, come to think of it, is perfect for me."

Wasn't she exactly the fresh, unfamiliar face he needed to land an impact? Even in The Terms of Inheritance she'd turned in striking work, yet strangely only the character had stayed in memory — never the actress herself.

Writer Yang pulled up the Whistle script and read it down from the top, picturing how it would play with Jung Ga-yoon in the role.

"Oho. Good."

Both her acting and her on-set instincts had real depth; pairing her with Seong Jin-ung should hold up fine. In Code Blue, hadn't she sparked beautifully opposite the veteran Yoon Jeong-seon? And Yoon Jeong-seon's aura was nothing to sneeze at, either.

Whistle had originally been conceived as a film. It had grown until it ran the length of six drama episodes — but that was still too short for a terrestrial network or a general programming channel, so he was weighing an OTT release. For now he'd sent the script to NetPlay, Cinerol, LiveOn, and Kiltta (short for Killing Time).

Cinerol's and Kiltta's terms didn't work. That left NetPlay or LiveOn. NetPlay's in-house production arm was Butterfly; he'd partnered with them on his most recent project and it had been a hit, but their working style clashed with his, and that gave him pause.

"Okay. LiveOn it is, then."

Jung Ga-yoon had only just wrapped a drama, so she could join right away. Relieved of his worry over the villain role, Writer Yang sent off his email to LiveOn with a far lighter heart.

Landing roles had never come easily to Jung Ga-yoon. She knew now that the fault lay with Baek Ga-yoon's meddling — but back then, she hadn't.

So she had always gone after her roles the way a strategist lays siege. She studied a writer's and a director's tendencies, then mapped out precisely what role she could play in their project and how she would contribute to it. She found out who would produce the work, where the sponsorship would come in, and who would distribute or broadcast it — and pitched, down to the last detail, what choosing her and Until would bring to the table.

Every step of that campaign, she had undertaken alongside the CEO of her agency, Until. Back at the very beginning, after Baek Ga-yoon had edged her out of Doll, she had laid out her own analysis and her own needs before him; he'd eyed her thoughtfully enough, though he did ask why, of all things, an actress was doing her agency's job.

What Jung Ga-yoon had endured was, of course, commonplace in this industry. There would always be a handful of talents who pushed through the unfairness and emerged anyway — and Hwang Mu-jin, CEO of Until, went around telling anyone who would listen that Jung Ga-yoon was one of them.

She sent CEO Hwang a message.

Through the evil spirit, Ga-yoon had drawn up a shortlist of renowned writers beyond the reach of Baek Ga-yoon's influence and set them under surveillance. The first one she'd looked in on was Writer Yang Bo-hyeon, famous for his stubbornness about casting. As luck would have it, he had just finished a new script and was filling in his casting board before choosing a production company — and on top of that, he was actually considering Jung Ga-yoon for the villain.

What luck.

She'd figured it was about time for him to start laying the groundwork on a new project; she simply hadn't expected the opportunity to land in her lap this quickly. She had appeared in one of Writer Yang's works early in her debut — and now that she knew he wanted her for the villain, she had to move fast to make contact. Writer Yang was a star writer with firm casting convictions, granted, but whether claiming that villain role would be smooth sailing or an uphill battle would hinge on where the production company and the broadcaster ended up landing.

She had only glimpsed it, but the script — she'd liked it. Greed stirred in her. With time running short, she had to move with meticulous precision. Through the evil spirit's eyes, she had just watched Writer Yang weighing NetPlay against LiveOn. But LiveOn was out of the question. High-Top, run by Baek Ga-yoon's mother Geum Sa-ra, held enormous sway there, for LiveOn was a platform under the KEN Group that stood behind High-Top. LiveOn would surely veto Jung Ga-yoon's casting — which meant she had to make certain Writer Yang's casting conviction never wavered.

Earlier, Writer Yang had pulled up the script while mulling her over for the villain — thanks to that, she'd been able to read it. Whistle was a mystery crime thriller. Its villain — Choi Mi-so, the villain who combed the city for the true culprit at the protagonist's side — was a deep, demanding character. Choi Mi-so was a murderer. She had built herself a flawless alibi, then killed her own sister with her own two hands. She engineered deliberate encounters with Detective Ha Ji-hyeok, the protagonist of Whistle, deceiving him with her vow to find whoever had killed her sister. Because of Choi Mi-so's perfect alibi, Detective Ha Ji-hyeok is swayed and misled to the very end — right up until the moment he finally shuts her behind bars.

"I have to nail this."

It was difficult and magnetic in equal measure, which was exactly why she craved it and wanted to play it brilliantly. Performing a scene straight off the script would only invite suspicion — that wouldn't do. Instead she would deliver a performance of similar spirit, one Writer Yang would find impossible to give up on.

If CEO Hwang said he'd forward it at once, then it had surely gone out without delay. How would Writer Yang react? Fidgeting with her fingers, Ga-yoon called for the evil spirit.

"Monkey. Let's go see what Writer Yang is doing right now."

"Oh, sure. But you do realize this is spying, right? You're still going to watch?"

"...I'm watching."

"Doing wrong in ignorance is a sin — but doing it knowing full well? That's a far greater crime!"

Snickering, the evil spirit rustled itself larger, and the stream of time flowing from the nape of her neck stretched a little longer. Barely a rat's-tail's worth, but longer all the same. And then Writer Yang appeared before her eyes.

Over at Until Entertainment, Jung Ga-yoon's agency, CEO Hwang Mu-jin had been fiddling with his phone when a sigh escaped him.

"Where on earth did she hear that news — and go so far as to prepare a video?"

He himself had heard it only moments ago: Writer Yang Bo-hyeon was preparing a new project, and considering an actress with serious acting chops for the villain. It was news he'd only picked up while combing his personal connections for scripts, after casting offer after casting offer had fallen through for Ga-yoon — and still she had beaten him to it. Jung Ga-yoon had been one step faster.

"Well then. Let's have a look."

The moment the video ended, CEO Hwang burst out in admiration. Jung Ga-yoon's acting was, as ever, superb. She had grown since the Doll audition eight years ago — grown even beyond The Terms of Inheritance. He paired her video with a gracefully worded note and sent both to Writer Yang Bo-hyeon.

A few days later, Writer Yang called.