Director and creator of the critically acclaimed Netflix series Squid game, Hwang Dong-hyuk revealed why he didn’t cast a real trans actor to play a trans character in the show’s return: He just couldn’t.
In an interview with TV guideHwang explained that he saw the backlash coming over the horrified reactions he received from fans upset over the decision to cast a cis actor, Sung-hoon, as Hyun-ju, a transgender woman, in the TV series. Season 2 installation.
“I anticipated that such discussions would arise from the first moment I started creating the character Hyun-ju,” Hwang said.
“Early on we were doing our research and I was thinking about doing an authentic casting for a trans actor.”
After doing some digging, however, Hwang’s hopes of diversifying his cast were quickly dashed.
“When we researched in Korea, there were almost no openly trans actors, let alone openly gay ones, because unfortunately in Korean society currently the LGBTQ community is quite still marginalized and overlooked, which is heartbreaking,” he said.
“It was almost impossible to find someone we could authentically cast,” Hwang continued.
“And that led us to the decision to cast Sung-hoon. I had been watching his work since his debut and had complete faith in him that he would be the right person in terms of talent to play this character.”
When it comes to LGBTQ rights, South Korea is still several steps behind the United States, as the country has not yet legalized same-sex marriage and discrimination against the queer community is still rampant.
Only in July did South Korea’s Supreme Court rule that same-sex couples can receive the same health insurance benefits as heterosexual couples, according to Amnesty International.
Squid game Season two, which was recently nominated for a Golden Globe ahead of its release, will premiere Dec. 26 on Netflix.
