By Jennifer Maas
TV Enterprise Author
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 Game.” Now that the Emmy-winning smash hit present returns for Season 2 on Dec. 26, viewers may not 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 now 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 gained — however it was all blood cash.
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On condition 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 job Lee initially needed to fear about reprising.
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Then the viewership spiked, the Emmys rolled in and Netflix begged Hwang for extra. So he set to work on determining how finest to carry again “Squid Sport.” Season 2 finds Gi-hun as soon as once more within the video games, this time secretly attempting to take down the folks behind the twisted occasion.
“We had many conversations about why he has turn out to be who he’s now. Nevertheless, to some extent, JJ [Lee Jung-jae] was already conscious of what sort of character Gi-hun could be in Season 2,” Hwang says. “From the tip of Season 1, after the video games and after he had gained 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 at the start of Season 2 as a consequence 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about getting ready Lee for the place Gi-hun was at mentally and extra about working with Lee to seek out items of the outdated Gi-hun they may incorporate in an natural method in Seasons 2 and three to please the “Squid Sport” viewers.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, a whole lot of what the folks cherished about Gi-hun was he was this sort of naive, at occasions infantile and playful and at occasions immature sort of character,” says Hwang. “And he had held this heat and goodness of coronary heart, and that was what lots of people cherished 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 realize what he has got down to do.”
In Seasons 2 and three, it was tougher to seek out “that aspect of Gi-hun that individuals cherished a lot earlier than,” says Hwang. “So the way to get a glimpse of his outdated self that individuals cherished a lot with any probability we had — that was one thing that he and I mentioned loads about, and likewise one thing that I stored in thoughts from after I was writing the script as effectively, as a result of regardless that he’s much more critical and targeted character, I nonetheless wished to provide 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 finest preserve the state Gi-hun could be in mentally all through the tip of the collection. “It was very fascinating for me as an actor to reside as Gi-hun for nearly a 12 months,” Lee says.
That point was a tough one for Lee, who needed to rebuild his character into an unrecognizable man, one whose objectives and instincts have been eternally 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 nerve-racking method. I simply had a whole lot of introspections and what to give attention to 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 via a lot change, how ought to I painting his developed emotions and his transformation? As I had extra introspections and deeper introspections about my character on this story, that actually helps me as an actor in portraying my character, so I used to be in a position to 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 tough to elucidate to all of them why the promised prize cash shouldn’t be value 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 attempting my finest to save lots of 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 totally different gamers within the sport. Whereas it was enjoyable for me to check out this new character, as a result of he’s a extra critical and hardened character, it was a problem for me.”
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