It’s been greater than three years since audiences noticed Lee Jung-jae’s playing addict Seong Gi-hun leap into his Participant 456 uniform to compete within the lethal, infantile video games on the middle of Netflix’s Korean drama “Squid Sport.” Now that the Emmy-winning smash hit present returns for Season 2 on Dec. 26, viewers won’t acknowledge Lee when he fits up as Gi-hun once more — however that’s not due to the prolonged wait between installments.
This season, Gi-hun is not his fun-loving, optimistic self, which is fairly comprehensible for somebody who was the only real survivor of a battle royale. He walked away with 45.6 billion received — nevertheless it was all blood cash.
Provided that “Squid Sport” creator and director Hwang Dong-hyuk didn’t conclude Season 1 with any plans to make a second (which has led to a 3rd and closing) season, it was not a task Lee initially needed to fear about reprising.
Then the viewership spiked, the Emmys rolled in and Netflix begged Hwang for extra. So he started working on determining how greatest to convey again “Squid Sport.” Season 2 finds Gi-hun as soon as once more within the video games, this time secretly making an attempt to take down the folks behind the twisted occasion.
“We had many conversations about why he has grow to be who he’s now. Nonetheless, to some extent, JJ [Lee Jung-jae] was already conscious of what sort of character Gi-hun can be in Season 2,” Hwang says. “From the top of Season 1, after the video games and after he had received the massive money prize, he left the sport, however couldn’t assist his mom, as a result of the mom had handed away. So JJ was already conscious of the place we wished to fulfill Gi-hun firstly of Season 2 as a result of all of these experiences.”
For Hwang, it was much less about getting ready Lee for the place Gi-hun was at mentally and extra about working with Lee to search out items of the outdated Gi-hun they may incorporate in an natural means in Seasons 2 and three to please the “Squid Sport” viewers.
“The factor we targeted much more on and invested conversations and time into was how, in Season 1, loads of what the folks beloved about Gi-hun was he was this type of naive, at instances infantile and playful and at instances immature form of character,” says Hwang. “And he had held this heat and goodness of coronary heart, and that was what lots of people beloved about this character. However now you meet him at a degree the place he’s much more targeted and virtually utterly dominated or consumed by his drive to attain what he has got down to do.”
In Seasons 2 and three, it was tougher to search out “that aspect of Gi-hun that individuals beloved a lot earlier than,” says Hwang. “So the way to get a glimpse of his outdated self that individuals beloved a lot with any probability we had — that was one thing that he and I mentioned rather a lot about, and in addition one thing that I saved in thoughts from after I was writing the script as effectively, as a result of although he’s much more severe and targeted character, I nonetheless wished to present a glimpse into his outdated self, that acquainted, virtually childlike self that individuals love a lot.”
Hwang wrote Seasons 2 and three back-to-back, and the episodes had been filmed in Korea starting in 2023, with Hwang making certain the second season wrapped earlier than they moved on to Season 3 so Lee might greatest preserve the state Gi-hun can be in mentally all through the top of the collection. “It was very attention-grabbing for me as an actor to dwell as Gi-hun for nearly a 12 months,” Lee says.
That point was a troublesome one for Lee, who needed to rebuild his character into an unrecognizable man, one whose targets and instincts have been endlessly modified by his time spent within the first video games and the lives he misplaced round him at the moment.
“I did really feel a little bit of a stress, however not solely in a hectic means. I simply had loads of introspections and what to deal with going into Season 2,” Lee says. “For instance, how can I make the video games extra entertaining? Or as a result of Gi-hun has been by way of a lot change, how ought to I painting his advanced emotions and his transformation? As I had extra introspections and deeper introspections about my character on this story, that basically helps me as an actor in portraying my character, so I used to be capable of actually pull it off.”
In Season 2, Gi-hun re-enters the video games in hopes of taking them down, however when he meets a brand new set of deeply debt-ridden gamers, he finds it troublesome to clarify to all of them why the promised prize cash will not be price risking their lives for.
“It’s true that it was extra enjoyable to behave the Season 1 Gi-hun, as a result of he’s extra of a enjoyable character, and he’s very expressive about his emotion,” Lee explains. “However in Season 2, I had to take a look at all of the circumstances that the characters had been in. I used to be making an attempt my greatest to avoid wasting lives, and I additionally needed to persuade individuals who weren’t on my aspect. I used to be a personality who needed to embrace the backstories and traumas of all of the completely different gamers within the recreation. Whereas it was enjoyable for me to check out this new character, as a result of he’s a extra severe and hardened character, it was a problem for me.”
