‘All my teeth are gone': Squid Game's creator on the toll of making the biggest show on Netflix

Telegraph

2 days ago

It is impossible to overstate the success of Squid Game. ­The brilliant, bloody South Korean drama – in which hundreds of ­fin­an­cially desperate individuals compete, in a sequence of lethal challenges, for a multimillion-pound prize – grabbed the attention of viewers across the world with its bizarre combination of playground games and violent deaths.
Subtitled, made on a comparatively small budget and released with next to no fanfare in September 2021, the first series became a surprise hit and remains Netflix's most-watched show to date. The follow-up, which arrived on Boxing Day 2024, was instantly devoured by viewers all around the world.
The show's triumph, however, came at no small personal cost to Hwang Dong-hyuk, its 54-year-old creator, writer and director. After the first series, he revealed that the strain of getting Squid Game on to the screen had left him so stressed that his teeth had begun to come loose and, one by one, fall out.
So, on the eve of the third series (released on Netflix next month), I cannot resist asking Hwang how his remaining teeth are holding up. 'I lost two more,' he sighs. 'I'm still wait­ing for the implants.' How many teeth has he now lost in total? 'I guess 10 or 11.'
One of the reasons the pressure of making the smash-hit show falls so squarely on Hwang's shoulders is that he chooses to work alone, to prevent his singular vision from being diluted by committee. 'I don't think it's ever crossed my mind to ask for help in the process,' he tells me. 'I knew it was going to be very challenging, but I went into it thinking that it's just what has to be done.'
It hasn't been all bad news for Hwang, of course. Thanks to the monster suc­cess of Squid Game, he finds himself, in stark contrast to his childhood, comfortably well off. Alongside Parasite's Oscar-­winning Bong Joon Ho and Oldboy's Park Chan-wook, he can also now consider himself one of Korea's most in-demand auteurs.
The new series will bring to an end the story of Seong Gi-hun, aka Player 456 (played by Lee Jung-jae), the idealist who outlasted 455 other contestants to triumph in the first Squid Game, but re-entered the death match in series two in an attempt to bring down the system from within. 'It's been quite a long journey, and a very challenging one, too,' Hwang tells me. 'So I'm very happy to be able to conclude it.'
The action picks up where the previous series left off, when a group of players (led by Gi-hun) launched an insurrection against the villainous Front Man and the others in control of proceedings. This being Squid Game, the players are of course defeated and those who have not died in the firefight are chucked back into the competition.
Having seen the first half of the new series, I can confirm that some of the games that feature in it are among the most brutal Hwang has yet devised, complete with highly charged face-offs between players and more than one moment that will make viewers gasp. There is also a brief but significant use of a Cliff Richard song.
It all promises to lead to a final showdown between Gi-hun and the Front Man, who is himself a former winner who stayed on to control the Squid Game on behalf of the sadistic international investors who bankroll the slaughter.
Hwang laughs when I ask him if Netflix had wanted him to extend Squid Game beyond a third series. 'I don't think they're going to say no if I say I want to do it, but so far, nobody has said, 'Please make more,'' he confirms. 'I don't have any more stories that I want to tell, but, as the saying goes, never say never.'
Hwang feels an affinity with his characters, having struggled for years to make ends meet. His father, a journalist, died of stomach cancer when Hwang was five, and through­out his childhood his mother would take odd jobs to ­support him, his brother and grandmother. He has described the family as being 'very poor for a very long time'. The idea that ­eventually led to Squid Game came to him in 2009, shortly after the financial crisis hit South Korea. But it took more than a decade – during which time he established himself as one of Korea's leading film­makers, topping the domestic box office with Silenced (2011) and The Fortress (2017) – before Netflix finally took a punt on his series.
Hwang speaks good English, having studied at the University of Southern California and spent a few years living in Los Angeles; I suspect he has the linguistic skills, if not the confidence, to dispense with the interpreter. He laughs again when I ask if he feels closer to the optimism of Gi-hun or the cynicism of the Front Man when considering the state of humanity, before replying in rapid-fire Korean.
'You know, I used to be very optimistic,' he says. 'I had a lot of trust, empathy and compassion; that is why Gi-hun is my protagonist. But I have to say, while creating Squid Game and looking around the world, seeing what's happening, it's true that I've become more pessimistic. I began to ask myself, 'Can we stop climate change? Are we, as a species, going to one day agree to reduce CO2 emissions and turn to green energy? Are we willing to make that sacrifice?' And I found the answer to be, 'No', because we are very selfish, right? We are only focused on our own gains, our own wealth, and we are going to drive ourselves into ruin.'
He adds: 'I do feel I'm quite like Gi-hun, and in season three, you will see him continue his struggle not to lose hope. And I think for me as well, every day, I am also struggling, on my own, not to lose hope in humanity.'
One prominent theme that runs through the second and third series of Squid Game is the limitations of democracy. At the end of each round, the players are given the opportunity to bring the games to an end – a majority vote would stop the bloodshed – but the greedy and avaricious invariably triumph, ­terrorising the rest into continuing.
Is Hwang suggesting that democracy is a flawed system? 'I think that when it comes to representative democracy, there's really no way other than to follow the majority vote,' he says. 'But I continue to ask the more fundamental question, 'Is the majority vote always the right choice?' Especially for countries where the party or the person who is chosen as a result of the majority vote gets to hold onto power for so many years.'
A single election result, he suggests, 'can affect too many things', ultimately 'creating even harsher divisions among people'. That is especially true in Korea, the leadership of which Hwang characterises as an 'imperial presidency' that 'dominates everything for years'. There was unprecedented chaos last December when the country's president, Yoon Suk Yeol, declared martial law and, after a huge public outcry, was removed from office.
We are speaking in April, shortly after Donald Trump's 'liberation day', on which the US president upended the global economic order by levying tariffs in his quest to Make America Great Again.
Trump is the epitome of a divisive politician: I ask if Hwang sees him as a Front Man type, who has orchestrated his own global version of Squid Game, in which every­body is out for themselves? Once more, he laughs.
'It's not right for me to make that direct comparison with the current president in power,' he says. Besides, 'I have to visit the United States quite often and you know how they are getting trickier issuing their visas... So why don't we return to this subject after [Trump] has left office?' That is not a 'no'.
It's hard not to see in Squid Game's dystopian scenario a critique of late-stage capitalism – the heavily indebted masses are forced to descend to unimaginable depths in pursuit of money, while billionaires look on and laugh at their misfortune. It is not without a ­certain irony, then, that the show itself has become such a commercial juggernaut, spawning a spin-off reality show, merchandise lines and live experiences.
Hwang sees no contradiction there. 'Squid Game is not a textbook, right? It's not a government-financed public announcement,' he argues. 'We went into it wanting to create something that would do well commercially and make people want to subscribe to Netflix, and it is a product of that. Its content happens to be critical of the current things that we see in society. Regarding Netflix's commercialisation of the IP, I do not object to it. I have no negative emotions about that. I want to make it clear that the message of the show is not a full-force rejection of capitalism itself.'
Nevertheless, he adds, 'it is time for us to put a halt to the excessive chase for further growth. Look at what we have neglected along the way, and also look at how there is no systemic or institutional safety net for those who become losers of the limitless competition in today's capitalist society.'
As for what Hwang is planning next, he says, 'I'm just exhausted with all my teeth being gone, so I'm really focusing on trying to recover my body and my mind.' He will admit, however, that he has both a new film and a television series in the works – and, although he is reluctant to reveal too many details, it sounds as though he is not yet ready to leave behind the brutality that defined Squid Game.
'The film is about events in the near future. It's based on the ­conflict between the younger ­generation and the older generation,' he says. 'The premise is that, as the environment becomes worse and worse, we have to get rid of half of humanity.'
It hardly sounds like light entertainment. When I ask if Hwang has ever considered writing something more uplifting, he directs me towards Miss Granny (2014), his lighthearted domestic hit (available now on Netflix), which sees a woman in her 70s magically finding herself back in the body of a 20-year-old. 'For my future projects and the things that I'm tossing around right now, there is still going to be romance, fun and comedy,' he insists, 'no matter how bleak the theme may be.'