Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk on drawing from today’s Korea for season 2

The young Koreans buying cryptocurrency and gambling online inspired some of the new characters in Squid Game season 2, Hwang Dong-hyuk says

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Squid Game writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk talks about seasons 2 and 3 of the hit Netflix series, and watching Breaking Bad. Photo: Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP

Published: 7:15pm, 27 Dec 2024

Viewers may gasp, cringe or cry out watching characters die on Netflix’s Squid Game, but those simulated deaths have a different effect on its creator, writer and director. Instead, Hwang Dong-hyuk feels happiness seeing them go.

The show has a huge cast and Hwang says it was “really difficult” to manage everyone on set.

As characters would die, Hwang recalls saying to the actors on their last day, “‘Oh no! How sad! I won’t see you tomorrow’, but I was always smiling inside.”

Squid Game season two premiered on December 26. It once again stars Lee Jung-jae and centres around a secret competition in South Korea that targets people in debt and offers a big cash prize to the winner. However, losing the game is deadly.

It’s going to be quite cruel, quite sad, but at the same time quite quirky and humorous.

Hwang Dong-hyuk on his next project, a feature film set in the future

Hwang conceived the show 15 years ago as a two-hour film but it failed to gain traction with financiers or actors. He put it aside and worked on other films. He then had the idea to make it a TV series instead and took the project to Netflix. There, it could reach a wide audience.