Squid Recreation actor Park Sung-hoon has spoken about his trepidation taking part in a transgender character in season two of the present, provided that the actor is a cisgender man.
Within the hit season, the actor performs the distinguished character Cho Hyun-ju, a transgender lady with a navy background coming into the lethal recreation to fund her gender-affirming surgical procedure. There was some controversy on the casting, though Park was aware of the dangers from the beginning
In an interview with Selection, he mentioned: “I used to be fairly amazed on the alternative — I felt like as an actor it was going to be fairly the problem. I did have considerations about portraying a trans lady as a result of I’m a cisgender man, so I actually wished to strategy it as cautiously and thoughtfully as potential”.
In December, present director Hwang Dong-hyuk gave an explaination as to why the character was being performed by a cisgender man, telling US Journal: “At first, we had been doing our analysis, and I used to be pondering of doing an genuine casting of a trans actor”.
He continued by saying there have been “near no actors which can be brazenly trans” and that “Sadly, within the Korean society at the moment, the LGBTQ neighborhood is moderately nonetheless marginalised and extra uncared for, which is heartbreaking”.
The position finally went to Park, who shared that he would really like the character to problem perceptions of transgender folks. “I actually hope that Hyun-ju will play an element in possibly eliminating a few of these biases” he mentioned. “I hope that individuals who belong in these communities will now not really feel discriminated towards or expertise disadvantages inside society”.
Regardless of the controversy, the actor has revealed that he has obtained optimistic suggestions from the transgender neighborhood. “Actually, a lot that I can’t learn each single one among them” Park says of the suggestions. “I beloved feedback saying that they’d by no means seen a trans character like this earlier than and the way it was empowering for them. So, studying these feedback, a part of me feels reduction and lots of pleasure”.
Season two of Squid Recreation has been an enormous scores hit for Netflix, with Hwang Dong-hyuk promising the arrival of a 3rd season “earlier than you’d count on”. He additionally in contrast the themes of the present to Korea’s present political turmoil.
