Squid Game suddenly caught the eye of a powerful Hollywood director for a surprising reason
Here’s what piqued Steven Spielberg’s interest in Squid Game’s cast.
Recently, international audiences are buzzing about director Steven Spielberg‘s interest in the famous series Squid Game. In Hollywood, director Steven Spielberg is a veteran name behind many classic blockbusters, such as Jaws, Jurassic Park, the famous Indiana Jones series, etc. Therefore, his comment for Squid Game is no different from golden words, especially when this Netflix-branded Korean drama is still creating a great effect, leading the “hot trend” worldwide.
According to Deadline, what makes director Steven Spielberg impressed about Squid Game lies in the selection of the cast. Instead of inviting A-list stars who used to be familiar with Hollywood like Lee Byung Hun, Bae Doo Na, etc., the drama has many new faces, most of which are quite strangers to the Western entertainment industry. Therefore, when speaking for the Skirball Center conference (Los Angeles), director Steven Spielberg thanked Ted Sarandos – Netflix’s content director, because he dared to change the traditional concept of casting.
“Squid Game comes along and changes the math entirely for all of us. Thank you, Ted. A long time ago it was domestic stars that brought the audience into movies. Today, it’s interesting, unknown people can star entire miniseries, can be in movies.” – director Steven Spielberg talks about Squid Game with flattering words.
And indeed, most of the Squid Game actors are unknown internationally. In addition to the two male leads Lee Jung Jae and Park Hae Soo who have had certain success in the country, Wi Ha Joon, Jung Ho Yeon, Oh Yeong Su, Kim Joo Ryung, Heo Sung Tae and Anupam Tripathi are all rising stars. Some even are not originally in the acting field like supermodel Jung Ho Yeon, who caused a fever over social networks with the role of “player 067” Sae Byeok.
Recently, the Squid Game stars continued to affirm their ability when achieving many nominations at the Hollywood awards season. While actor Oh Yeong Su won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor, Lee Jung Jae and Jung Ho Yeon were respectively named at the SAG 2022 (Award of the Screen Actors Guild-American SAGA) ceremony.
Since its launch in September 2021, Squid Game has become Netflix’s most-watched series, accumulating 1.65 billion hours of viewing within its first 4 weeks and becoming a stepping stone to America for many stars. Following the global success, Netflix has confirmed to continue the second season of Squid Game in the near future.
