[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for games/characters that come up later in the season. Read on only if you’re fine knowing those details.]
It’s very easy to watch Squid Game and think: I could do that. It’s perhaps even easier than some of the other reality competition shows. That is, after all, the Faustian bargain of the elite, violent games of Squid Game. It’s exactly the same level of thinking that gets the characters killed — after all, just how hard would it be to make it through a single round of Red Light, Green Light?
Squid Game, as a show, makes clear that it’s often more luck than skill that gets people through the games. But for the cast and crew, even getting a guaranteed outcome was far from playing a simple children’s game. And with season 2 deviating from the schoolyard games of season 1 for a few trickier competitions, the question had to be asked: Which was the hardest game to actually play?
The cast themselves, while not putting their lives on the line, certainly have a dog in that fight. We polled the cast of Squid Game’s second season to find out what was actually challenging about this year’s challenges.
“I enjoyed the game of six legs. […] That was the most fun. But at the same time, it was very difficult, because we had to stay with our legs tied together the whole time.”
Lee Jung-jae (Seong Gi-hun)
Image: Netflix
“So for me it was Red Light, Green Light because we shot that for four or five days, and I was screaming at the top of my lungs all the time. I’m like, ‘Freeze!’ or ‘Stop!’ and kind of bossing people around. I would be screaming all the time, and sometimes it makes you a little bit dizzy when you are screaming so much.
“Thankfully I didn’t lose my voice and we could wrap up the scene well. But yeah, that was the most challenging for me.”
Kang Ae-sim (Jang Geum-ja)
“It would definitely be the [pentathlon]. It reminded me of pep rallies or these big games that we would have at school back in the day where we were divided into red team and blue team and people would be cheering and everyone would be looking on, and it really had the tension and the emotion of those games.”
Showrunner Hwang Dong-hyuk
“For me, it was definitely the pentathlon — first of all, because there were just so many people that had to appear on screen and on set. And there was so much sand dust on the ground. So that led to a lot of people coughing constantly; I remember having a lot of trouble breathing as well, and having respiratory cold later on because of that. And also we had [only] so many numbers of shoot days to film the entire sequence. It was almost like a nightmare, I believe at the time — because I believe we went through about 15 to 16 shoot days over a course of probably a span of two or three weeks at least. So if I had to do it all over again, I don’t think I could.”
Lee Byung-hun (Front Man)
“While I truly believe that it was probably director Hwang who had to go through the most amount of trouble (and for whom it was probably the biggest challenge, because he had to think about all of the complexities), as an actor taking part in those scenes I believe that pentathlon was one of the toughest to shoot. Because first of all, the dust — the air was filled with sand dust at all times, so it was tough to breathe. And there were so many people there on screen, which you always have to be aware of as an actor.
“But also in season 2, because my character requires for different facets where I have to be part Front Man, part In-ho, and then part the fake persona Young-il. So at times, I would have to switch on and off from my eyes having to be that of Young-il and then the next glance, having to be that of In-ho, and having to switch that immediately on and off with each fleeting moment. That was both very challenging and intriguing and a fun challenge for me to take on as a performer.”
Yang Dong-geun (Park Yong-sik)
“I think for me it was definitely the [merry-go-round] game because I had to show a lot of these deep inner emotions. And I think getting to that point where I could act out these emotions was a difficult process for me.”
Lee Seo-hwan (Park Jung-bae)
Photo: No Ju-han/Netflix
“For me, it was the [merry-go-round] game. It was actually difficult for me physically, because I have really bad eyesight and the lights will shut down and then they will open up in another second, and sometimes you get blinded by that and you just can’t see for a few seconds. The floor was really slippery, too, and there was so many people, so it was physically challenging for me.”
Yim Si-wan (Lee Myung-gi)
“Before shooting, I thought the Green Light, Red Light would be relatively easy. But it was not, because standing still without any movement was actually very hard for me.”
