When I ask the creator of the hit Korean drama Squid Game about reports that he was so stressed while shooting the first series he lost six teeth, he quickly corrects me. “It was eight or nine,” he laughs.
Hwang Dong-hyuk is speaking to me on set as he films the second series of his dystopian Netflix thriller, which sees hundreds of debt-laden contestants fight it out for a whopping cash prize, by playing a string of life-or-death children’s games.
But another series was not always on the cards. At one point, he swore against making one.
Given the stress it has caused him, I ask what changed his mind.
“Money,” he answers, without hesitation.
“Even though the first series was such a huge global success, honestly I didn’t make much,” he tells me. “So doing the second series will help compensate me for the success of the first one too.”
“And I didn’t fully finish the story,” he adds.
The first series was Netflix’s most successful show to date, thrusting South Korea and its home-grown television dramas into the spotlight. Its dark commentary on wealth inequality touched a nerve with audiences around the globe.
But having killed off almost every character, Hwang has had to start from scratch, with a new cast and set of games, and this time audience expectations are sky high.
“The stress I feel now is much greater,” he says.
Three years after the first series aired, Hwang is even more pessimistic about the state of the world.
He points to current wars, climate change and a widening global wealth gap. Conflicts are no longer confined between the rich and poor, they are playing out intensely between different generations, genders and political camps, he says.
“New lines are being drawn. We’re in an era of us vs them. Who’s right and who’s wrong?”