Squid Recreation’s Lee Jung-jae on Season 2 of the Worldwide Hit Forward of the Premiere of the Closing Season.
Lee Jung-jae has by no means been in character this lengthy. For the final 5 years, he’s lived on and off as Seong Gi-hun, aka Participant 456, the naïve, good-for-nothing gambler turned civilian hero in Squid Recreation. “Lee Han from my debut movie, The Younger Man, was once my favourite character in my profession. Now it’s Seong Gi-hun,” Lee says, smiling. “I can’t assist it. That’s how everybody acknowledges me.”
It’s simply previous ten within the morning in Seoul, and Lee is already in full glam. He’s within the dressing room of a photograph studio, able to shoot his Queue cowl. A pair months earlier, he wrapped his world press tour for Squid Recreation Season 2. And within the midst of the worldwide anticipation for brand new episodes, he’s eagerly gearing up for the soon-to-be-released Season 3, which arrives June 27. “It’s been hectic,” he admits. “I’ve been so busy that I haven’t thought of anything.”
Unbelievably, the second season of the hit Korean present managed to interrupt much more information for the Squid Recreation franchise. When it premiered in December 2024, it drew 68 million views in its first week, turning into the largest collection debut in Netflix historical past.
“When Season 2 was introduced, I first thought, ‘Wow, is that attainable?’ Then I used to be stunned at how briskly director Hwang turned across the script,” Lee remembers. “As quickly as I learn it, I assumed, ‘At this degree, we are able to begin capturing instantly.’ ”
Collection creator and director Hwang Dong-hyuk was simply as surprised. “The primary day of capturing Season 2 felt surreal and otherworldly,” he says. “The primary season was so demanding that I assumed, ‘By no means once more!’ So Season 2 felt considerably inconceivable. An entire array of various emotions have been swarming inside me.”
When requested if he felt any stress for having to steer and anchor such a big manufacturing, Lee shakes his head. “Not significantly. Saying that will nearly be infantile,” he says. “I feel all of us felt stress as a result of Season 1 was such a giant success. So I needed to ensure everybody was having fun with themselves on set. It was a wholesome dose of stress.”
Lee Jung-jae bought his begin modeling in TV commercials, scouted by a expertise supervisor who first sighted him working at a café in Seoul. He was 19 or 20, simply out of highschool and saving up for a vocational faculty the place he deliberate to check structure and inside design. In 1993, after roughly a 12 months of modeling, he was solid in his first Okay-drama collection, Dinosaur Trainer, rapidly making a reputation for himself as a breakout star by subsequent roles in his first movie, The Younger Man (1994), as effectively the collection Emotions (1994) and Sandglass (1995).
Sandglass particularly took Korea by storm. The 24-episode collection’ remaining episode amassed a staggering 64 % viewership ranking — which means six out of 10 households with a tv in Korea watched it — and propelled Lee to superstardom early in his profession. Then got here the film that solidified him because the nation’s main heartthrob: Metropolis of the Rising Solar (1999), a movie so iconic that it was rereleased in theaters final 12 months for its twenty fifth anniversary. Lee performed Hong-gi, a con artist who wastes cash by playing it away at horse races. (Sound acquainted?) To this present day, Lee is the one actor to have achieved the quadruple grand slam for profitable Finest New Actor (1995), Finest Actor (1999), Finest Supporting Actor (2013), and Finest New Director (2022) on the Blue Dragon Movie Awards, considered one of Korea’s most prestigious ceremonies. His report for being the youngest to win Finest Actor at age 27 stays unbroken.
Regardless of his early success, Lee’s 30-plus-year profession trajectory wasn’t a relentless uptick. “Folks are likely to solely bear in mind my actually profitable work, and might imagine these mark the turning factors of my profession. However the reality is, I went by quite a lot of characters that allowed me to decide on a difficult and experimental collection like Squid Recreation,” Lee says. “Each success and failure performed an vital function in ultimately main me right here. I discerned the great and dangerous from all my experiences which helped me construct Seong Gi-hun’s character.”
It was when Lee collaborated with famend director Im Sang-soo for The Housemaid (2010) that he was in a position to dial up his on-screen momentum much more. He performed Hoon, the wealthy husband who impregnates a housemaid by an affair. Director Im’s pointed and darkish portrayal of financial class divide landed the solid a Palme d’Or nomination on the Cannes Movie Competition, giving Lee his first likelihood at stepping onto the French purple carpet. He was 38 — by some requirements, a late bloomer — but it surely marked the opening of his second heyday.
The remainder of Lee’s filmography within the 2010s not solely helped outline his profession, but additionally Korean cinema at massive. The Thieves (2012), New World (2013), The Face Reader (2013), and Assassination (2015) have been extremely regarded upon launch, and are nonetheless touted as must-see Okay-films.
The throughline in Lee’s physique of labor is the timelessness of its underlying message. “Crucial factor is selecting a narrative that folks residing within the concurrent era — these of all ages and genders — can relate to, whether or not it’s political, societal, or on a regular basis feelings,” he explains. “You have to reply the query, ‘Why do I wish to inform this story now, in 2025?’ It’s essential to drive conversations, and make folks rethink the opposite facet of issues they might not have in any other case thought of earlier than.”
In Lee’s view, then, what’s the underlying message of Squid Recreation Season 2? “Individuals are publicly ostracized and divided based mostly on their choices within the voting course of,” he says, referencing the vote to remain or depart the sport that gamers participate in after every around the second season. “Society tends to ostracize and divide folks based mostly on who they suppose are completely different, and that’s very harmful. That’s one of many new classes. It’s well timed as a result of we’re nonetheless experiencing battle and battle all around the world.”
Because the actor factors out, there are stark variations between Squid Recreation’s freshman and sophomore seasons. Plotwise, Season 1 largely facilities on the precise video games, the intense massacres, and the relationships among the many distressed contestants, whereas Season 2 takes extra of an out of doors view and affords a glimpse into the mechanics behind the operations of Squid Recreation.
Nevertheless, one of many greatest variations between the 2 seasons, and the obvious, is protagonist Seong Gi-hun’s transformation. By means of all of the trials and tribulations, he turns from a struggling divorced gambler who’s determined, frightened, and infrequently clueless into an armed warrior with a mission. “What carries Gi-hun by is his good coronary heart, and that good coronary heart provides him the braveness to assist victims of evildoing,” Lee says. “It’s not a lot enjoying the hero, however simply standing up towards massive energy. Season 2 is about that journey, about what small residents can accomplish after they muster that braveness.”
Hwang admits that Seong Gi-hun’s transition was probably the most tough facets of making Squid Recreation’s later seasons. “I feel that was difficult for Lee Jung-jae, too,” he says. “He was beloved for this character who was brimming with vitality and curiosity, however he needed to redirect that vitality for Season 2. It’s one of many greatest dangers and variations [from] the primary season, however the evolution in his character is vital.”
Lee’s performing philosophy mirrors his emphasis on delivering the message behind the work. “I wish to act as realistically as attainable. Myself and my fellow actors must be plausible, and the viewers have to really feel that,” he says. “I need folks to suppose that Squid Video games are literally taking place someplace on this planet. I used to prioritize my intestine feeling, however now I do know that’s not all the time sufficient. My job is to persuade whoever I’m working with, and the audiences, to really feel that very same factor.”
When analyzing his character for Squid Recreation’s first season, Lee famously shadowed passersby in Seoul’s road markets to look at how they dressed, walked, and talked. “I like to observe documentaries or learn the information, to know what’s happening on this planet.” For Lee, his major sources of inspiration are grounded in actuality, in graspable, palpable objects and feelings. Performing is his chosen medium of expressing and remembering the state of humanity.
In 2022, Lee added directing to his artwork type with Hunt, a spy movie set within the Nineteen Eighties, when South Korea was nonetheless beneath a army dictatorship and experiencing intense tensions with the North. It introduced the newly minted director again to Cannes for the second time, the place his screening acquired a seven-minute standing ovation.
“The best way I talk with viewers is a bit completely different after I’m performing than after I’m directing,” Lee says. “After I’m directing, I pour my every thing into each scene. There’s the topic of the general work, but additionally distinct ones in every scene or sequence, and all of them organized and edited culminate in a single bigger message. After I’m performing, I attempt to hearken to the creator of the work as a lot as attainable. Their issues come first, so I talk and embody the character of their world as greatest I can.”
At a look, Lee’s lifetime of fame and glamour could seem completely reverse from that of his Squid Recreation character. “I attempt to be optimistic and suppose positively, which is analogous to Gi-hun,” he says. “However I don’t prefer to make a giant deal out of dangerous conditions, or get too excited when issues are good. Fame and all these issues are simply momentary.”
As all the time, Lee is protecting himself in test, regardless of his continued mega-success. After this interview, he’ll simply get again to work on the Queue shoot. “I would go on trip, however even then, I’ll most likely work, scripts,” he says, by no means dropping his smile.
No matter comes subsequent, Lee has confirmed all through his profession that he’ll proceed to ship. In spite of everything, he’s Participant 456 — Squid Recreation’s final contestant. Will he even be the final man standing? We’ll have to attend and see.
Season 3 of Squid Recreation premieres June 27 on Netflix.