Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk is explaining why cisgender actor Park Sung-hoon was cast as transgender character Hyun-ju in season 2.
Hwang, 53, who also wrote and directed both seasons, knew that some fans would expect to see a transgender woman play Hyun-ju, a former special forces officer who enters the South Korean series’ deadly competition to win money for gender-affirming surgery.
“I did anticipate such discussions to arise from the first moment I began creating the character Hyun-ju,” Hwang told TVGuide earlier this month. “In the beginning, we were doing our research, and I was thinking of doing an authentic casting of a trans actor.”
Hwang soon found, however, that there were “close to no actors that are openly trans” in South Korea.
“Unfortunately, in the Korean society currently, the LGBTQ community is rather still marginalized and more neglected, which is heartbreaking,” he explained.
After determining that it would be “near impossible to find someone who we could cast authentically” as a trans woman, the Squid Game team settled on Park, 39.
“I have watched his work ever since his debut, and I had complete trust in him that he would be the right person in terms of talent in portraying this character,” Hwang said of Park.
The director’s decision to include a transgender character in season 2 is consistent with the message of season 1, which premiered on Netflix in 2021.
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“I saw the people who come to join the games in Squid Game as people who are usually marginalized or neglected from society, and not just financially speaking,” Hwang told Decider on Friday, December 27. “Today, unfortunately, in Korean society, the gender minority is a group that is not as accepted widely within society, which is why I created the character Hyun-ju as a male to female transgender woman.”
Transgender actors playing transgender roles is a relatively new development even in the United States, but trans activists argue that casting cis actors in trans roles perpetuates the harmful belief that trans people are simply putting on a costume. Annette Bening, whose son Stephen Ira Beatty is transgender, explained the concept during a 2020 interview with The Telegraph.
“The important thing that I’ve really begun to understand about that issue is that sometimes people see trans people as [putting on] a sort of performance,” Bening, 66, said. “But in fact that’s a mistake, it’s a misunderstanding.”
Despite facing some criticism for Park’s casting, Hwang is hopeful that the character of Hyun-ju will be a net positive.
“By creating a character much like Hyun-ju and through her choices, her actions, and the way she carries herself in the game, I hope that that could raise awareness of these issues that we face today,” he told Decider.
Season 2 of Squid Game hit Netflix on Friday, December 26. The dystopian thriller series follows the participants of a life-or-death game as they compete to win billions of dollars.
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