CHAPTER 183: TALENTED ACTOR

Josephine twisted her pouted lips. ’He is not bad.’

"Did you like him?"

She was approached from behind by Sofia Monet.

Josephine’s sharp eyes turned to the old woman. ’So, you did turn up.’

"He is fine." She turned back to stare at the actor, who was busy conversing with the director. "What can you even interpret from a single take of such a small scene, Madame?"

The older lady folded her arms. "Plenty, I would say."

"Like?"

"For once, your concerns about him are unfounded. He most certainly is a good actor."

The younger actress bit her lower lip. ’Did the director rat me out? Shouldn’t have divulged any of that.’

He knew how much he admired the older actress. She was almost like a mentor to him.

"We don’t know that yet. The difficult scenes are plentiful."

Madame Monet agreed. ’It’s a different role from BSPH...’

But she knew he would be able to handle it. Her eye for talent had never let her down. She believed, with all her heart, that the enigmatic actor she first saw at the charity event in Seoul was the next big thing.

It wasn’t going to be easy, she knew.

’Just a bit of luck. That’s all a talented artist needs.’

***

Ari turned to Hyerin. "So, what’s the role exactly?"

"He is a drifting photographer who has lost his artistic sense."

In the buzz of the crew setting up for another take, Hyerin’s voice became increasingly lost.

"He can’t find beauty in anything, and if he can, he can’t take pictures of it. He has lost interest. At least, that’s how I interpreted it."

Her feet swayed as she leaned forward.

"Did you like it?"

"It was a bit... underwhelming."

"Why?"

"I thought there would be more. I thought he would be intense like Asmodeus."

The woman burst into a fit of laughter. "We can’t do that every day, can we? And starting with something intense doesn’t happen often."

"Yeah..." Although she tried not to show it, she was clearly disappointed. "I thought I would get to witness a scoop. I mean, it’s great, but I wanted to see something more magical."

Hyerin held back the edges of her lips from rising. ’They are not much different, Averie and her.’

***

"Wonderful, wonderful," Director Groux said in his subdued tone. "How do you feel?"

Benoit Durand leaned against the counter. "It’s fine."

Averie, on the other hand, shook his head. "It could be better."

’Much, much better.’

Director Groux seemed satisfied with both of those answers.

"We may risk missing the deadline if we waste too much time." He pushed up his glasses. "But I do agree. Why not do better if we’re not satisfied with just fine?"

He gave the two actors an approving nod.

"Let’s go for a few more takes. Because the little things matter."

He turned back and made his way to the first AD.

"Mr. Auclair, was it?" The older actor gave him a genuine smile of goodwill. "You are very talented."

Averie blinked stupidly.

"I don’t believe you have seen enough of my acting to come to that conclusion."

The good man raised a brow at him. "Haven’t I? It is evident that acting comes to you almost instinctively. It is your second nature."

Averie crossed his legs. "Do elaborate."

Benoit took a seat beside the young actor. "When you move, you try to catch the camera."

"That’s what bad actors do."

"There is a difference. How should I put it?" The man scratched his chin, his eyes studying the tall ceiling. "It’s like you know how to make a picture look more" — He indicated quotation marks with his index and middle fingers — "artistic, for the lack of a better word, with something as simple as the slight tilt of your head. These little things that are hard to execute without deliberate effort—you do them without a second thought."

He gave the young actor a pat on the shoulder before taking his position behind the counter.

"It is wonderful to see an actor from the younger generation with such entrenched artistic values. The peculiar movement of your joints, the way you sit at the edge of your seat, the way you breathe out of your mouth at the end of your every sentence—these things will not be noticed by most of the film-going audience. But I am sure the cinephiles will appreciate it."

’To notice all that while acting, aren’t you the talented one?’

Although his mind was clouded by the delicacy of his other role, he felt happy.

’How nice it is to act with someone so perceptive.’

His gaze turned to the side where Hyerin was sitting with a young girl.

’Ah, is that girl my cousin?’

She was dressed in a turtleneck. Her wavy, black hair was as long as his. Her eyes were fierce, and her nails were colored black.

’Did you copy me? How unfortunate.’

He gazed down at his nails. The nail polish was removed.

’Can’t have that for this role.’

He smiled to himself.

’Let’s take her somewhere nice after this. Who knows? She could learn a cruel thing or two from me.’

Fifteen minutes later, the crew was ready for the second take.

"Scene 7, Artist, Take 2."

It was a few tens of seconds longer than the previous one.

And so passed two hours.

It was the same shot repeated multiple times with changing camera angles, but Ari developed a peculiar joy in watching it.

She liked finding differences from the previous iterations, but what she found most interesting was the subtle changes in her cousin’s acting.

’It feels sharper.’

It was an improvement, she could tell.

***

’What is an actor thinking while acting?’

Averie was in the makeup room, quiet and alone.

’Some think about their next line. Some are concerned with their position. Some are worried about their body language.’

The lunch break was on, but the actor hadn’t spared a single glance at the tray of food, his team, or his relative. He had rushed there for solitude immediately.

’And the worst of them care for all of this.’

His eyes were closed, and his body was limp.

’The audience—a group of people who have come together expecting to empathize—do notice the traces of all these thoughts surprisingly easily.’

His fingers twitched slightly.

’Like a wild animal sensing fear in its foe, they can sense the hesitation and awkwardness hidden on the face of the actor.’

He felt someone’s touch on his forehead. Hyerin was taking his temperature. But he wasn’t worried. He reckoned she would know it was a different kind of fever.

’And in that moment, they judge the actor, stripping him of his character. It’s harsh, and to the actor, it’s death itself. Then, what is an actor to do? How should he act? How can he act without thinking?’

The hands touching his skin multiplied. What felt like seconds must have been minutes; the makeup team had surrounded him.

’For that reason alone, good actors rehearse extensively using, to differing degrees, scores of acting methods—Meisner Technique, Stanislavski System, Chekhov Technique, The Method, Stella Adler Technique.’

No one actor was in the room.

’Great actors know where to use what and have developed their own rituals—where and how to use what.’

Someone ran a hand through his hair, which was soon replaced by a hairbrush.

’Once the filming begins, they have already familiarized themselves with the character, the world, and the plot. So, they ’become’ the character.’

Gene Conti was a bit different in that regard.

It was a difficult time, and nobody knew if they would be alive to see the next day or if the enemy would wipe them out.

It wasn’t a revered profession back then, and in the turmoil, he couldn’t be introduced to acting methods.

So, he developed his own—a psychotic method that slowly morphed the actor into the preferred role by methodically layering the ego, habits, and personality of the latter on the former.

The key was practice under insomnia while a single song repeated.

Gene used to call it the ’Groovy Suicide.’

And the audience loved his portrayals. He was always a single step more realistic than any other actor, a step more impactful than the rest of the cast, the most charming of the lot.

’They see the man on the screen, and in their eyes, they only see a character—no actor, no portrayal, no doubt behind a façade—and they know that they are watching a piece that would go down in history as a classic. Such brilliant moments and roles have defined the greatest actors.’

And they had defined Gene Conti.

But that wasn’t enough. For the Hell’s Actor, it wasn’t enough.

’They act so well, but why has no one cared to wonder what lies beyond brilliance?’

Because what could possibly be beyond perfection?

’The character itself.’

Such a thought process would’ve been seen as insanity by any other man, but Averie was already insane. What could stop him?

Half a century in Hell prompted him to better his acting method.

’Forget who you are, your name, your friends, your parents, your life.’

Soft hands unbuttoned his shirt. They undressed him, preparing for a drastic transformation.

’Severe all that connects you to this life. To be someone else, you must kill yourself.’

The existential dread that followed—the constant, desperate question of ’who am I’— was layered with another set of information.

It was the deepest and most dangerous level of 10th Circle.

No one—not even the devil—could tell the consequences of such a drastic method.