Who will be the ‘next Jung Ho-yeon’?

With the release of season 2 of ‘Squid Game’, a representative K-content and the most popular drama in the world, just 3 weeks away, fans are paying close attention to who will be the next Cinderella in ‘Squid Game’ after Jung Ho-yeon.

Jung Ho-yeon, who had no acting experience before ‘Squid Game’, played the role of Sae-byeok, a pickpocket from North Korea, in season 1, and became a global star who received love calls from Hollywood in an instant. In addition, Jung Ho-yeon won the SAG Award for Best Actress in a Television Drama Series from the Screen Actors Guild (SAG).

In addition, the two new female actors Park Gyu-young and Jo Yu-ri have been named as main cast members for Season 2, raising expectations for ‘the birth of the second Jung Ho-yeon’.
Park Gyu-young, who appeared in ‘It‘s Okay to Not Be Okay’, ‘Sweet Home’, plays No-eul, who barely makes ends meet working in a parade at an amusement park but participates in a life-or-death game. Like Saebyeok, played by Jung Ho-yeon, she is a North Korean defector whose only goal is to save up money and find her young daughter whom she left behind in the North. Park Gyu-young said, “I tried my best to express the emotion of sunset with extreme pain.”

Jo Yu-ri, a former member of the group IZ*ONE who made a special appearance in ’Drunken Women in the City‘, is taking her first steps as an actress through this production. The character Jun-hee, played by her in the drama, is a character who believes in incorrect investment information given by her ex-boyfriend and loses a large sum of money and participates in the game.

While overcoming the death game with strong will, she also develops a complex relationship with her ex-boyfriend Myung-gi (Im Si-wan) whom she reunites with at the game venue, adding multi-layered fun.

Director Hwang Dong-hyeok, who selected Jo Yu-ri through several auditions, said, “The moment I saw the audition, I thought, ‘This is my friend,’” and “I felt tremendous energy from her appearance and eyes when she was acting.”



Lee Seung-mi reporter smlee@donga.com