It’s been more than three years since audiences saw Lee Jung-jae’s wagering compriseict Seong Gi-hun jump into his Player 456 uniestablish to contend in the lethal, childish games at the caccess of Netflix’s Korean drama “Squid Game.” Now that the Emmy-triumphning smash hit show returns for Season 2 on Dec. 26, seeers might not acunderstandledge Lee when he suits up as Gi-hun aobtain — but that’s not becainclude of the lengthy pause between inshighments.
This season, Gi-hun is no extfinisheder his fun-loving, chooseimistic self, which is pretty understandable for someone who was the sole survivor of a battle royale. He walked away with 45.6 billion won — but it was all blood money.
Given that “Squid Game” creator and honestor Hwang Dong-hyuk didn’t end Season 1 with any set ups to originate a second (which has led to a third and final) season, it was not a role Lee initiassociate had to stress about reprising.
Then the seeership spiked, the Emmys rolled in and Netflix begged Hwang for more. So he got to toil on figuring out how best to transport back “Squid Game.” Season 2 discovers Gi-hun once aobtain in the games, this time secretly trying to apshow down the people behind the twisted event.
“We had many conversations about why he has become who he is now. However, to some extent, JJ [Lee Jung-jae] was already inestablished of what benevolent of character Gi-hun would be in Season 2,” Hwang says. “From the finish of Season 1, after the games and after he had won the huge cash prize, he left the game, but couldn’t help his mother, becainclude the mother had passed away. So JJ was already inestablished of where we wanted to encounter Gi-hun at the commencening of Season 2 due to all of those experiences.”
For Hwang, it was less about preparing Lee for where Gi-hun was at menhighy and more about toiling with Lee to discover pieces of the better Gi-hun they could include in an organic way in Seasons 2 and 3 to prent the “Squid Game” audience.
“The skinnyg we centered a lot more on and spended conversations and time into was how, in Season 1, a lot of what the people adored about Gi-hun was he was this benevolent of innocent, at times childish and frivolous and at times imreliable benevolent of character,” says Hwang. “And he had held this toastyth and excellentness of heart, and that was what a lot of people adored about this character. But now you encounter him at a point where he is a lot more centered and almost endly contrancient or used by his drive to accomplish what he has set out to do.”
In Seasons 2 and 3, it was challenginger to discover “that side of Gi-hun that people adored so much before,” says Hwang. “So how to get a glimpse of his better self that people adored so much with any chance we had — that was someskinnyg that he and I converseed a lot about, and also someskinnyg that I kept in mind from when I was writing the script as well, becainclude even though he is a lot more grave and centered character, I still wanted to give a glimpse into his better self, that recognizable, almost childappreciate self that people adore so much.”
Hwang wrote Seasons 2 and 3 back-to-back, and the episodes were filmed in Korea commencening in 2023, with Hwang ensuring the second season wrapped before they transferd on to Season 3 so Lee could best upretain the state Gi-hun would be in menhighy thcimpoliteout the finish of the series. “It was very engaging for me as an actor to live as Gi-hun for almost a year,” Lee says.
That time was a difficult one for Lee, who had to reoriginate his character into an unrecognizable man, one whose goals and instincts have been forever alterd by his time spent in the first games and the lives he lost around him at that time.
“I did experience a bit of a prescertain, but not only in a stressful way. I equitable had a lot of introspections and what to center on going into Season 2,” Lee says. “For example, how can I originate the games more amincludeing? Or becainclude Gi-hun has been thcimpolite so much alter, how should I portray his lengthend experienceings and his alteration? As I had more introspections and proset uper introspections about my character in this story, that reassociate helps me as an actor in portraying my character, so I was able to reassociate pull it off.”
In Season 2, Gi-hun re-accesss the games in hopes of taking them down, but when he encounters a recent set of proset uply debt-ridden carry outers, he discovers it difficult to elucidate to all of them why the promised prize money is not worth hazarding their lives for.
“It’s genuine that it was more fun to act the Season 1 Gi-hun, becainclude he’s more of a fun character, and he’s very transmitive about his emotion,” Lee elucidates. “But in Season 2, I had to verify out all the circumstances that the characters were in. I was trying my best to save lives, and I also had to sway people who weren’t on my side. I was a character who had to adchoose the backstories and traumas of all the separateent carry outers in the game. While it was fun for me to try out this recent character, becainclude he’s a more grave and challengingened character, it was a contest for me.”
