Become A Star

Chapter 29

Even though his agency did not put pressure on the media to publish anything about Chae Woo-Jin as an actor, there were already reports about people digging for information about him. Perhaps if those people knew that Chae Woo-Jin was already one of DS’ artistes, they would not hesitate to openly promote him.

By nature, the media and agencies shared a mutually beneficial relationship where they tried to be in each other’s good books, taking care of one another. Their relationship was one where they would do favors for one another, even if they did not ask the other party for one in the first place. Even though it required quite a lot of effort, it was a relationship worth investing in.

After the preview was over, Jang Su-Hwan was once again reminded of the importance of their relationship with the media when he saw an article with a picture of Park Min grimacing. If one were to become haughty once they had become successful and went against the media, they would be ‘rewarded’ with such photos and articles. Even though there was no need to be intimidated by the media, it was clear that an actor abusing their power and disregarding their circumstances was a foolish act.

Jang Su-Hwan looked at Death Hill’s official poster and promotional materials that were placed side by side on his desk. The faces of the two main leads were on the poster with their names printed in big letters. Chae Woo-Jin’s name could be found at the bottom of the poster, among the names of the other actors, printed in small letters. That was the same for the promotional materials – unless one were to intentionally search for it, it was difficult to make out Chae Woo-Jin’s name.

However, unlike the official poster, Chae Woo-Jin’s face could be seen quite clearly in the promotional materials. There was an image of the scene that was taken right before they kissed, where he had perched on top of the female lead, who was sitting on the sofa, grabbing her chin. Even though they were at the back, that took up a third of the whole poster. Apart from that scene, there was also another where he held the female lead in his arms as they walked as well as one where he was placing a band-aid on the female lead’s wounded face. They were in sharp contrast with Park Min’s scene with the female lead, where they were only running away, while holding each other’s hands. The comparison was making it evident that a love story between Chae Woo-Jin and the female lead had formed. The images of Woo-Jin and the female lead were really nice to look at, and above all, they were sexy.

The reason why the official poster and the promotional materials were so different was because Park Min had an investor backing him. There were rumors saying that Park Min, who had returned after filming a commercial abroad, was very guarded against Chae Woo-Jin for taking over his parts in the movie while he was away. Actually, instead of being guarded, it was more accurate to say that he was retaliating against Woo-Jin.

His indiscriminate hostility towards the rookie, who had the audacity to steal his sequence, put pressure on the production company via his investor. There was no other reason why Chae Woo-Jin was not invited to the press conference, previews and interviews. It was a well-known fact in the industry that Park Min’s sponsor was Death Hill’s biggest investor. If she had only been an ordinary investor, she would not have been able to aggressively and biasedly push for more opportunities and advantages for Park Min. She had acted as though she was not interested in getting back the money she had invested into the movie. Seeing how her purpose of investing was not to make profits but to lift Park Min’s spirits, Director Moon seemed to have suffered quite a bit because of her abuse of power.

Unlike the official poster, the promotional materials were produced and released as late as possible. If they were made in advance, it was possible that the investor would have removed Chae Woo-Jin’s face from the promotional materials. Because of that, Chae Woo-Jin was now known as ‘The Unknown Actor’ after the press preview. It was not easy to locate his name in the poster or the promotional materials because the name of his character hadn’t been mentioned at all throughout the movie. In the last scene, he posed a question to the female lead asking if she even knew what his name was.