South Korean actor Park Sung-hoon is opening up about his approach to his transgender character in the second season Squid Game.
Netflix’s hit thriller series drew criticism last month when it was revealed that the cisgender Park had been cast in the role of Hyun-ju, a former special forces soldier and transgender woman. Critics have long argued that apart from denying trans actresses work, casting cisgender men to play trans women reinforces the anti-trans perception that trans women are “really” men. That insidious belief is not only at the heart of efforts to deny trans women access to public bathrooms, changing rooms, and shelters, but can also lead to violence against them.
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While Park did not directly address the backlash, he noted in a January 8 interview with local reporters that he approached the role with “caution,” and consulted with actual trans people in an effort to make sure Hyun-ju would not come off as a “caricature,” according to Korea JoongAng Daily, the English language edition of South Korean daily newspaper JoongAng Ilbo.
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“I never wanted to overdo the voice or exaggerate my gestures, and [Squid Game creator and director Hwang Dong-hyuk] fully agreed with me on that,” Park said. “Since my natural voice is quite deep, I felt that altering it too much would undermine the emotional authenticity.”
Park went on to explain that he worked closely with Hwang and the show’s costume and makeup teams to develop the character’s look. But, he said, “Hyun-ju’s short bangs were my idea.”
He also noted that in a particular scene, Hwang asked him to think about how Hyun-ju’s mother would have felt when she first learned about his character’s “sexuality.”
Hwang “wanted that emotion to come through, but at the same time, didn’t want to overdo it,” Park said.
Park also explained that Hwang had spotted his feminine side and saw the character in him in his performance as a grieving father in a 2021 episode of the South Korean anthology series KBS Drama Special.
“I was raised with two older sisters, so it was difficult not to be influenced by them growing up,” Park said. “But I had kept this feminine side of me hidden.”
Hwang, meanwhile, addressed criticism of his casting of Park late last month, telling TVGuide.com that while he initially intended to cast a transgender actress, “there are close to no actors that are openly trans, let alone openly gay, because unfortunately in the Korean society currently the LGBTQ community is rather still marginalized and more neglected, which is heartbreaking.”
In a subsequent interview with Decider, Hwang explained why he felt it was important to include a trans character in the show’s second season.
“I saw the people who come to join the games in Squid Game as people who are usually marginalized or neglected from society, and not just financially speaking,” he said. “Today, unfortunately, in Korean society, the gender minority is a group that is not as accepted widely within society. Which is why I created the character Hyun-ju as a male to female transgender woman.”
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