Lee Byung Hun has just returned to the screen with the survival film “Squid Game 2”. For the actor, his biggest challenge in the film is to portray 3 character identities: the mastermind Frontman, Hwang In Ho - Jun Ho's brother and Oh Young Il - player 001 who infiltrates the survival game.
“The audience knows Frontman, but they don’t know Hwang In Ho. Furthermore, I had to hide my identity and play Young Il in front of the new players. I felt like all three characters had to coexist within me. It was a constant process of switching between characters in every scene,” he said.
Regarding the most difficult moment playing the leader, Lee Byung Hun said it was a scene involving a social game - where participants had to form groups based on randomly assigned numbers and run to a room before time ran out.
“The hardest scene was in the integration game, when I killed a participant right in front of Jung Bae. In that scene, I felt Frontman, Hwang In Ho, and Oh Young Il had to teleport back and forth in an instant. Expressing those subtle differences was the hardest part.”
According to the actor, Frontman is everywhere. In the game, Frontman watches Gi Hun very closely and predicts what the male lead will think and do. This is also the reason why the character pushes Gi Hun into desperate situations when they participate in the deadly game together.
It is worth mentioning that, although he is one of the Korean actors who made his mark in the Hollywood market, Lee Byung Hun confessed that his role in the movie "Squid Game" contributed to his international reputation skyrocketing.
“I have acted in Hollywood blockbusters a few times, but being welcomed overseas by acting in Korean with Korean colleagues is a completely different feeling. It is ironic but also touching that I receive more recognition for Korean works than for Hollywood films.
As an actor, I always thought that the ideal life was to be known wherever I went. After filming “G.I. Joe: The Battle of the Cobra,” I thought, “From now on, I will no longer have a life of moderate fame, I will become very famous.”
I thought like that a few times after that, but when I went abroad, no one recognized me. But this time, the feeling was very real. I felt like I would live like a celebrity during this time" - the male star said.
