The ending of Squid Game Season 3 continues to spark debate, and in any other setting, Seong Gi-hun star Lee Jung-jae may have questioned the outcome. But there’s one reason he trusted the process.
Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk did warn us that the Netflix series was never going to have a happily ever after. Gi-hun saving Kim Jun-hee’s (Jo Yu-ri) baby over himself is symbolic of the importance of sacrifice in the current world we live in.
It also gives Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) some hope for humanity, only for it to be dashed when he spots an American recruiter (Cate Blanchett) in LA and realizes the cycle of destruction will continue – even if Korea’s Squid Games are over.
The cast had known what was coming for their characters since the start of Season 2, as Dong-hyuk wrote and shot the final two chapters back-to-back. Now, Jung-jae has elaborated on his thoughts of the ending and Gi-hun’s final decision.
Why Lee Jung-jae didn’t fight the Squid Game Season 3 ending
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the actor addressed the fact that Dong-hyuk didn’t originally plan to kill off Gi-hun, saying that he may have pushed for changes if the circumstances were different.
“Personally, if Season 1 hadn’t been such a big success, or if the script had been written by a different writer/director, I might have been more involved in suggesting changes or pushing back,” he said.
“But with everything that’s happened – and the trust I have in director Hwang – I made the choice to fully support his vision. I believed it was the best choice for the story.”
Jung-jae explained, “If this project had been more focused just on the entertainment side of being a death-game genre, I don’t think the director would have wanted to end it this way. But Squid Game is different.
“It’s not just spectacle – it’s about the themes of our inner humanity and societal relationships. I think director Hwang wanted a very clear and complete ending – one that fits his overall message – even if it meant signaling that there won’t be a Season 4.
“I believe he felt strongly that Gi-hun’s final decision was the right end for his arc.”
He has a similar view to Player 222’s baby becoming a participant in the games. When Jung-jae first read the script, he was horrified.
“It was such a horrible page to read – very painful. I thought, ‘How did he come up with this?! Why have a baby be born under such cruel circumstances?’ But it’s true – I believe it was the birth of the baby that sparked something again in Gi-hun,” he continued.
“I think if not for the baby, Gi-hun probably would have just let go – maybe even of his own life. But with the birth of the baby, he had something he wanted to protect. It rekindled the humanity that Gi-hun had always harbored before all of this.
“It gave him renewed purpose – to protect this child no matter what. And I think that’s a very human feeling. It reminded me that we all live for our future generations, just as our parents did.”
With this message in mind, Jung-jae provided his own interpretation of Gi-hun’s unfinished final line. Right before jumping off the pillar, the character says to Front Man, “Humans are…” but the rest of the sentence is left ambiguous.
When asked to fill in the blanks, the actor said, “For me, my character’s heart was truly genuine in only wanting to protect and save that baby. So for me, that line was interpreted as: ‘Humans are worthy of respect.’”
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