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‘Squid Game’ star Lee Jung-jae just created history at the Emmys 2022. The South Korean actor, who played the lead role of Seong Gi-hun in the megahit Netflix series, took home the biggest acting prize of the evening for males: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. He took on bigwigs like Jason Bateman, Brian Cox, Bob Odenkirk, Adam Scott, and Jeremy Strong to clinch the trophy. With this win, Lee Jung-jae becomes the first winner in this category who won the award for a non-English performance.
Also winning for the show was creator, writer, and director Hwang Dong-hyuk. He won an Emmy in the Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series category for the first episode of the show titled ‘Red Light, Green Light’.
“Thank you to the Television Academy, thank you to Netflix and thank you to the director for making realistic problems we all face come to life so creatively on the screen with a great script. Thank you, `Squid Game` team. Thank you to everyone watching in Korea,” Lee Jung-jae said.
Earlier, the show had taken four trophies at the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, including an Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series award for Lee Yoo-mi. In total, ‘Squid Game’ won 6 awards out of 14 nominations.
Created by Hwang Dong-hyuk, ‘Squid Game’ was a survival drama based on a contest in which down-on-the-luck participants are lured to a secret location. Then a series of deadly games take place, in which those who do not proceed to the next round are killed. The series explored the themes of classism and economic disparity in capitalistic societies like South Korea. Dong-hyuk envisioned the story from his own experiences of economic hardships.
Soon after its release, the series became a cultural phenomenon throughout the world, and was called one of the finest examples of the so-called ‘Korean Wave’. It received a universally positive critical reception. The show also created several viewership records in as many as 94 countries and became by far the most watched show on Netflix. It also won big at this year’s Golden Globes.
A season 2 is in active development. It will continue the story of Seong Gi-hun, Lee Jung-jae’s character, as he takes on the creators of deadly game.(WION)
