‘Squid Game’ Director Hwang Dong-Hyuk On Making Seasons 2 And 3

Squid Game season 3 has finally dropped, and once again, the dystopian survival thriller is captivating audiences worldwide. When the series first premiered in 2021, it became Netflix’s most watched show ever and launched K-dramas into mainstream conversations in the West. For Squid Game creator, writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk, the show’s unprecedented success was unexpected—and so was the prospect of doing multiple seasons.

Despite the first season’s open ending—in which protagonist Seong Gi-hun is about to board a plane but instead turns around and looks directly at the camera—Hwang says that it wasn’t done with a second season in mind. “Through Gi-hun, I wanted to have the audience think about how the world that we live in—the system that we live in—isn’t something that we should just take for granted. We should face it directly, question it and think about what we can do about it.”

Hwang admits that at the time, he figured that if the series happened to do well and there was a strong demand for a second season, the story could pick up from the moment Gi-hun turns around. “But I wasn’t seriously considering that possibility, nor was I particularly eager to do it,” Hwang says in Korean. “Physically and mentally, making the first season was so exhausting, so I never thought I’d want to make another season,” he adds in English.

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What Director Hwang Considered While Making Squid Game Seasons 2 And 3

But as fate would have it, the unprecedented global success of Squid Game meant that the show would be renewed for another season. Hwang initially intended to make only one more season but ended up writing 13 episodes in six months, so he decided to break them up into two separate seasons.

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His most important consideration while creating seasons 2 and 3 was showing Gi-hun’s transformation. “At the beginning of season 1, you see him as this very naïve, loser-like character who’s below average on all fronts. But after joining the games and going through that experience, he learns a lesson, and by the end of season 1, he’s become a different person,” Hwang explains. “So the main focus was, what is Gi-hun going to be capable of doing after he returns to the games? And as he recklessly attempts to stop the games, what kind of person will he become?”

Hwang adds that he also wanted to explore the question that Oh Il-nam poses to Gi-hun in season 1: “Do you still believe in humanity?” Hwang points out that “the most important theme for seasons 2 and 3 was showing what kind of answer Gi-hun arrives at by the end of his journey.”

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Squid Game Director Admits He’s “Kind Of A Perfectionist”

Because Hwang was given only six months to write 13 episodes, he felt the script was lacking in detail. “So all throughout pre-production and production, I kept revising the script. I’d come back from a shoot, get new ideas and then revise upcoming scenes accordingly,” he reveals. He ended up making a lot of changes to the story, including some substantial ones like rewriting the season 3 finale and altering the fates of Nam-gyu and Min-su. Besides those examples, he admits, “It’s hard to say exactly what stayed true from the beginning and which things changed, because so many details changed. I thought that was the only way I could create a script that was up to my standards.”

Listening to Director Hwang describe his creative process and attention to detail, one can’t help but get the sense that he’s very meticulous and dedicated to his craft.

“Would you say you’re a perfectionist?” I ask.

“I think I can say that,” he replies. “I’m usually a really lazy person—extremely lazy. But once I start something, I have to go all in and see it through to the end. I can’t let go of it, so I end up exhausting myself. In that sense, I’m kind of a perfectionist, and maybe that’s why it makes me lazier. Because I know how hard I’m going to be on myself when I start something, so I often don’t want to start at all,” he says with a laugh.

Squid Game Casting Controversies Around T.O.P And Park Sung-Hoon

Despite his somewhat perfectionist tendencies, not everything went according to plan. In particular, he shares that he wasn’t quite prepared for the casting controversies that arose ahead of season 2. When Netflix announced that the cast for the second season would include South Korean rapper, actor and former BIGBANG member T.O.P (real name Choi Seung-hyun), many Koreans protested due to his past marijuana use (drug abuse is often treated as a serious crime in South Korea), though international fans largely seemed to support his casting.

“I expected some backlash around T.O.P, but the reaction from the media and the internet in Korea was even more negative than I had anticipated,” Hwang says. “Since there’d been many previous cases of celebrities having been away from the public eye after smoking marijuana and then making a comeback, I thought it’d be okay for Choi Seung-hyun to resume acting, since enough time had passed. I was genuinely surprised by how much backlash there was.”

But Hwang adds that public sentiment in Korea around T.O.P has improved since the release of season 2. “Fortunately, now that there are many people who really like his character [Thanos], and Seung-hyun has also been able to put out a sincere apology through interviews and whatnot, I think the situation has been somewhat resolved.”

Meanwhile, the casting of cisgender male actor Park Sung-hoon as the transgender character Hyun-ju also sparked criticism, but mostly from international viewers.

“When I first considered him for the role, I thought it was a natural choice because in Korea, there aren’t really any transgender actors available to play a transgender character. There’s literally only one person you see on TV in Korea who is openly trans,” Hwang says. “But I know there was quite a bit of backlash about that decision overseas, especially in Western countries where people may not fully understand the reality in Korea.”

Hwang says that both he and Park did their best to explain the casting choice publicly and mentions a moment that gave him particular comfort. “One day, I saw this YouTube video from an American transgender influencer who said that she was initially very concerned,” Hwang says. “But she said that after watching the show, she was extremely taken by the genuineness of Hyun-ju’s character and loved her. So that made me very happy and relieved to know that our intentions had really worked.”

Will There Be A Season 4 Of Squid Game?

As for what’s next for the Squid Game franchise, Hwang laughs off the possibility of a fourth season. “No, not another season. Maybe a spinoff, if the opportunity comes up. I know many people out there are curious to know the backstory of many of these characters, so I do think a spinoff could be fun,” he says. “But it’s just something that I’m tossing around—nothing has been decided yet.”

With the third and final season of Squid Game finally being released out into the world, I ask him how he feels now that the blockbuster series he’s created is coming to an end.

“It feels bittersweet in every sense of the word,” he answers. “There was just so much pressure working on this show for the past six years. At first, I was worried that people might not like it. And then came the pressure of people liking it too much, and feeling like I had to meet their expectations. It felt like I was carrying a huge load on my shoulders for six years. And now that it’s gone, I feel a great sense of relief.”

He quickly adds, “At the same time, this project also gave me so many wonderful memories and allowed me to meet so many wonderful people. These were six of the most amazing years of my life, so I’m going to be sad to say goodbye to those moments. I’m just feeling a mix of a lot of different emotions.”

Squid Game season 3 is now streaming on Netflix.

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