“Squid Game” creator Hwang Dong-hyuk said it was a nearly impossible challenge to find a transgender woman to star in the thrilling Korean drama’s second season.
“It was near impossible to find someone who we could cast authentically,” Hwang said in a recent interview with TV Guide. So much so, the hit Netflix series ultimately cast an actor who identifies as cisgender, Park Sung-hoon, to star in the role.
“When we researched in Korea, there are close to no actors that are openly trans, let alone openly gay, because unfortunately in the Korean society currently the LGBTQ community is rather still marginalized and more neglected, which is heartbreaking,” the director explained.
While expounding on the creation of the new character who joins the deadly competition, she’s “short on money for her gender-affirming surgery,” Hwang told TheWrap (translated from Korean), further noting that she is someone who has been “damaged a lot by society,” but still has her inner beauty.
“Basically, she’s a person who got hurt a lot by social discrimination and prejudice. And there are many incidents in Korea where transgender people suffered prejudice and discrimination,” he continued. “Because I do know all the incidents, and I also have personal memories, and also on top of that, like, social incidents, but I wanted to emphasize the fact that even so, even if she is transgender, she has the inner beauty in herself as a human.”
Hwang concluded: “I just want to create a character who keeps the core of being human. What makes a human, why humans are different from other animals, regardless of their face or their appearance, gender, sex. I just want to make characters who keeps that core of human.”
Season 2 of “Squid Game” premieres on Dec. 26 on Netflix.