Three years after Squid Game became a cultural phenomenon — as well as Netflix’s most popular show of all time, in any language — the series is back for a second season, with Lee Jung-jae‘s Gi-hun returning to the game. After giving up his opportunity to go to the States after winning, Player 456 is now headed back to the arena with a whole new group of participants, and a new mission in mind.
At a For Your Consideration awards event for the new season in Los Angeles on Sunday, creator Hwang Dong-hyuk — who won an Emmy for directing season one — spoke about how he approached the new batch of episodes after the show’s explosive success.
“Of course I felt a certain amount of pressure because I knew that there was a huge amount of anticipation out there, and honestly when I was creating season one I didn’t plan in any detail that there would be a second season,” Hwang told The Hollywood Reporter. “However, I did have something in mind that if there were to ever be a second season, I had this idea of what story I would tell; I thought it would be the story of Gi-hun turning away from where he was at the end of season one and going back into the games in order to put a stop to the game,” noting that “throughout seasons two and three, it’s going to be about that very journey by Gi-hun that you’re going to be following,” both physically and emotionally.”
Lee, who was also present at the event — and also won an Emmy for season one — joked that when first getting the scripts for season two, “I didn’t think that he would write it that fast, I really doubted he could do that. And when I actually read [them] I thought, ‘This is immaculate, there’s absolutely nothing that needs to be changed.’ It was so well-written and I was just in awe of this talent thinking, ‘This man’s a genius.'”
At a panel conversation following an early screening of season two’s first episode, Hwang explained that something inside Lee’s character “has just been broken” by his time in the game, saying, “Gi-hun has experienced too many things, witnessed too many deaths, for him to return to the way it was before no matter how hard he tries.” Lee confirmed, “The way you see Gi-hun in season one and the state that you see him in in season two are very different.”
Lee also admitted that returning to set, with an almost entirely new cast, was “so strange,” as “for season one, so many colleagues and cast mates poured our hearts and souls into it, and then with each round of the games, we had to say goodbye to so many people. So all of those memories came back very vividly and also within the story — because so many characters had died on that set, it was almost like I was being pulled back to hell. And I think I could truly feel what the director had intended for me and my character, where, the moment I stepped onto the set, I felt like I really wish more people would make it out alive this time.”
Netflix announced over the summer that Squid Game would come to a close with a third season, which is set to release in 2025. Hwang told THR that he is “nearly done with the editing portion of season three,” and explained why he chose to wrap up the show relatively quickly.
“When I was thinking about the idea for the ending of season three, I think it sort of naturally came to me that this was the finale,” the creator said. “I believed that with that story, I was able to tell everything that I wanted to tell through the story of Squid Game and also in the perspective of Gi-hun as a character, and I thought that we don’t need any further stories from here.”
And as for the second season, which starts streaming Dec. 26, Hwang summed it up quite easily: “Season two is crazy.”
English (US) ·