Squid Game returns in just a few weeks, once again headed by its Emmy-winning star, Lee Jung-jae, who fans now know even better thanks to his turn on Disney+ Star Wars series The Acolyte. Lee’s character in Squid Game, Gi-hun, is an unlikely hero in season one—he’s a selfish gambler who joins the deadly competition out of desperation, and somehow stumbles away the winner. In season two, which picks up a few years later, he re-joins the game hoping he’ll be able to tear the Squid Game organization down from the inside out.
As you can imagine, Gi-hun has changed a lot from the irresponsible goofball stealing money from his mother’s bank account we met at the start of season one—and after all he’s been through, plus his post-game activities that we learn about when season two picks back up, it’s almost like meeting a whole new character.
At a recent Squid Game 2 press roundtable, Lee spoke to a group of journalists, including io9, about how Gi-hun has evolved. He’s definitely mired in survivor’s guilt and PTSD, and he is a haunted yet determined man.
“It was actually much more challenging for me to portray the darker Gi-hun,” Lee explained through a translator. “When you are a darker character, you can’t be so expressive, and Gi-hun is always tense. In season two, he’s always focused on achieving his only one goal of saving people and putting an end to the game.”
He continued. “So I thought, what would make me look very grounded? I try to put myself in his shoes, but I’m the one who played Gi-hun and so who can I ask for more advice? So that was the hard part. But I thought that, because his only goal in season two is to make it out alive with his [fellow] contestants, if I understand the backstories of the other characters better and deeper, that would really help me. Because I realize that while he is a darker character, he is a very altruistic character. So and I understood that, [and] that made it easier for me to portray this character.”
© No Ju-han/NetflixIn the same roundtable, fellow returning cast member Lee Seo-hwan—we met him as Gi-hun’s racetrack buddy Jung-bae in season one; in season two, he becomes Player 456’s comrade-in-arms after entering the game as Player 390—said he didn’t feel too much pressure returning to Squid Game, despite it unexpectedly becoming such a global phenomenon.
“I actually didn’t feel the pressure because we already made our characters in season one so we don’t have to create a new one this time around,” he said. “And that’s exactly what director [Hwang Dong-hyuk] wanted, [was] to continue on with the character that I made in season one. So I actually felt very comfortable going to set and conveying and portraying my character.”
He continued. “And we have these A-listers, very seasoned actors in the cast, so I knew that I could do my job well, and then everything else will just flow so smoothly because they’re all just so great actors. And I loved watching them perform—even on days that I didn’t have scenes, I would just go to the studio to watch other people play because it was just so fun to watch.”
He ended by joking, “And we have very good catering food there, so I love that too. So I think this is the time I feel the most pressure, like doing these interviews and junkets. I’m getting a lot of pressure from this.”
Squid Game season two hits Netflix December 26.
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