Guilty pleasures
By NewsPress Now
‘Squid Game’
returns looking for win with season 2
Stepping onto the set of “Squid Game” season two, Lee Jung-jae felt like he had never left.
“Including promotion, I’d been living with Gi-hun for about two years,” said Lee in a recent interview. “I really felt like I was him,” he said in a recent interview.
“Squid Game” follows an underground competition in Korea that recruits people in debt to participate in childlike games for money. Once the games begin, the contestants realize there are deadly consequences.
The show was a global hit when it was released in 2021, becoming Netflix’s most-watched series. It also won numerous accolades including Primetime Emmy Awards for acting for Lee Jung-jae and directing for Hwang Dong-hyuk. Lee’s career catapulted, taking him to the Cannes Film Festival and giving him his first English-language role in the “Star Wars” series “The Acolyte” for Disney+.
Lee says when Netflix ordered a second season of “Squid Game,” he questioned the timeline because it took Hwang years to work on the first one. “I wondered, ‘How many years will it take him to write season two,’” said Lee. Hwang, in turn, surprised everyone — including himself — by taking just six months to write season two and a third and final season. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to write something that fast again,” he said.
Creating new characters and their individual stories came easily. The biggest, challenge, Hwang said, was deciding what should happen with Gi-hun. Lee says when he read the scripts he thought Hwang “really is a genius.”
It’s rare for even successful TV shows in Korea to have more than one season so it was a big swing, even for the new cast.
“There’s a Korean phrase, ‘there’s not a sequel that does better than its prequel,’ said actor Yang Dong-geong, whose character debuts in season two. “I’ve been careful because we aren’t really sure what the reaction will be.” The outlook is positive. Season two has already been nominated in the best drama series category at the upcoming Golden Globe Awards.
The opportunity to work on a project with worldwide appeal is a dream come true for a performer. Lee Byung-hun, who reprises his villain role from season one, has appeared in big budget English-language films like “G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra” with Channing Tatum and Dennis Quaid and “Red 2” with Bruce Willis. It’s “Squid Game” that he credits for taking his career to another level.
“I’ve been an actor for over three decades and … maybe most people outside of Korea have never seen anything that I’ve been in. If anyone through ‘Squid Game’ wishes to see more of me or becomes more curious about my previous works, as an actor, nothing would be more rewarding or bring me greater joy.”
The audition process moved slowly. Jo Yu-ri recalls waiting two months between the first and second-round. When she finally got the part Jo says, “I actually remember crying.” The actors were asked to not speak publicly about their casting to wait for Netflix to make an announcement. “There were a couple of close friends that popped champagne for me when they found out,” said Yang.
Netflix’s “Squid Game” universe is also growing. A second season of a reality competition show based on the series has been ordered and an English version is in development. Season three of the original has also completed filming and is in post-production.
Season two is not without controversy. The new episodes feature a transgender character played by Park Sung-hoon. Hwang says he understands why hiring a trans actor would have been ideal, but that the casting is a reflection of how the LGBTQ community and gender identity is viewed in Korea.
“To be honest with you, in Korea, when it comes to the LGBTQ and gender minority community and culture compared to the Western worlds, it’s not as widely socially accepted yet. Unfortunately, a lot of the groups are marginalized and neglected from society, which is heartbreaking,” said Hwang.
“We don’t have a very large pool of actors that allow for authentic casting when it comes to transgender characters. We did our research. We tried to find someone who we thought could be the best fit. However, we weren’t able to.” Hwang also went on to say that Park’s talent and approach to the character ended up making him “the perfect fit.”
Spurs-Knicks Christmas game is also an animated one
NEW YORK | There’s a Christmas Day basketball game at Walt Disney World, featuring Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Wemby.
An animated game, anyway.
The real game takes place at Madison Square Garden, where Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs face the New York Knicks in a game televised on ABC and ESPN and streamed on Disney+ and ESPN+. The special alt-cast, the first animated presentation of an NBA game, will be shown on ESPN2 and also stream on Disney+ and ESPN+.
Madison Square Garden is a staple of the NBA’s Christmas schedule. Now it merges with a bigger home of the holidays, because the “Dunk the Halls” game will be staged at Disney, on a court set up right smack in the middle of where countless families have posed for vacation photos.
Why that location?
Because it was Mickey Mouse’s Christmas wish.
“Basketball courts often have the ability to make a normal environment look special, but in Disney it can only turn out incredible,” Wembanyama said in an ESPN video promoting his Christmas debut.
The story — this is Disney, after all — begins with Mickey penning a letter to Santa Claus, asking if he and his pals can host a basketball game. They’ll not only get to watch one with NBA players, but some of them will even get to play. Goofy and Donald Duck will sub in for a couple Knicks players, while Mickey and Minnie Mouse will come on to play for the Spurs.
“It looks to me like Goofy and Jalen Brunson have a really good pick-and-roll at the elite level,” said Phil Orlins, an ESPN vice president of production.
Walt Disney World hosted real NBA games in 2020, when the league set up there to complete its season that had been suspended by the COVID-19 pandemic. Those games were played at the ESPN Wide World of Sports.
The setting for the Christmas game will be Main Street USA, at the entrance of the Magic Kingdom. Viewers will recognize Cinderella’s castle behind one baseline and the train station at the other end, and perhaps some shops they have visited in between.
Previous alternate animated broadcasts included an NFL game taking place in Andy’s room from “Toy Story;” the “NHL Big City Greens Classic” during a game between the Washington Capitals and New York Rangers; and earlier this month, another NFL matchup between the Cincinnati Bengals and Dallas Cowboys also taking place at Springfield’s Atoms Stadium as part of “ The Simpsons Funday Football. “
Unlike basketball, the players are helmeted in those sports. So, this telecast required an extra level of detail and cooperation with players and teams to create accurate appearances of their faces and hairstyles.
“So, this is a level of detail that we’ve never gone, that we’ve never done on any other broadcast,” said David Sparrgrove, the senior director of creative animation for ESPN.
Wembanyama, the 7-foot-3 phenom from France who was last season’s NBA Rookie of the Year, looks huge even among most NBA players. The creators of the alternate telecast had to design how he’d look not only among his teammates and rivals, but among mice, ducks and chipmunks.
“Like, Victor Wembanyama, seeing him in person is insane. It’s like seeing an alien descend on a basketball court, and I think we kind of captured that in his animated character,” said Drew Carter, who will again handle play-by-play duties, as he had in the previous animated telecasts, and will get an assist from sideline reporter Daisy Duck.
Wembanyama’s presence is one reason the Spurs-Knicks matchup, the leadoff to the NBA’s five-game Christmas slate, was the obvious choice to do the animated telecast. The noon EST start means it will begin in the early evening in France and should draw well there. Also, it comes after ABC televises the “Disney Parks Magical Christmas Day Parade” for the previous two hours, providing more time to hype the broadcast.
Recognizing that some viewers who then switch over to the animated game may be Disney experts but NBA novices, there will be 10 educational explainers to help with basketball lingo and rules.
Beyond Sports’ visualization technology and Sony’s Hawk-Eye tracking allow the animated players to make the same movements and plays made moments earlier by the real ones at MSG. Carter and analyst Monica McNutt will be animated in the style of the telecast, donning VR headsets to experience the game from Main Street, USA.
Other animated faces recognizable to some viewers include NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who will judge a halftime dunk contest among Mickey and his friends, and Santa himself, who will operate ESPN’s “SkyCam” during the game.
The players are curious how the production — and themselves — will look.
“It’s going to be so crazy to see the game animated,” Spurs veteran Chris Paul said. “I think what’s dope about it is it will give kids another opportunity to watch a game and to see us, basically, as characters.”
John Mulaney is
back on Broadway
in sweet ‘All In’
NEW YORK | John Mulaney’s second trip to Broadway took little convincing. He didn’t even need to look at the script before signing on.
“I was like, ‘OK, well, send it to me. I’ll read it.’ And they sent it to me. I didn’t read it. I just agreed immediately,” the actor-comedian says.
What Mulaney signed up for was “All In: Comedy About Love,” a stage adaptation of his friend Simon Rich’s short stories that’s charming Broadway audiences this winter with a starry cast.
Joining Mulaney — who made his Broadway debut in 2016 with “Oh, Hello” — is Renée Elise Goldsberry, Richard Kind and Fred Armisen. They’ll eventually be replaced by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jimmy Fallon, Aidy Bryant, Nick Kroll, Tim Meadows, Chloe Fineman, Andrew Rannells, David Cross, Annaleigh Ashford and Hank Azaria.
“All In” opens with the surreal story of a guy who walks into a bar that has a 12-inch piano player and then goes on to feature personal ads from dogs — “Full disclosure: I’m neutered but no complaints yet,” reads one — a love triangle involving The Elephant Man, an aging talent agent confronting Death and a history report from the 2070s.
“These are such meticulously, beautifully written pieces,” says Mulaney, who befriended Rich when both worked at “Saturday Night Live.” “Because they so naturally lend themselves to performing, it’s very fun to take it off the page.”
Director Alex Timbers first approached Rich, the son of noted critic Frank Rich, with the idea of transferring some of his short stories to the stage.
“Our first reading was 4 1/2 hours long so it took some process of elimination, but we eventually found a batch of stories that we felt were not just thematically linked, but would lend themselves to powerful performances by talented actors,” says Rich.
Once they found the right stories, attention went to presenting them: How many actors should there be? How much of a production should the 90-minute play be? Should there be costumes and sets?
They landed on minimalism and four actors, which offered both a chance to showcase each’s versatility and make the play more intimate. The show is enlivened by original illustrations from New Yorker cartoonist Emily Flake and the band The Bengsons playing love songs from The Magnetic Fields’ catalog.
“What was going to serve the material best was the purest communication of it to the audience,” says Mulaney. “I’m sorry to use a drug thing, but mainlining the material versus taking it in a dissolvable.”
Two of the stories — a pair of passive-aggressive pirates who abandon their rough ways to raise a young stowaway and a noir detective tale told by babies — features children and child-rearing, something both Rich and Mulaney can now relate to.
“It all is greatly enhanced by my own life,” says Mulaney, the “touring, stand-up comedian, ‘Saturday Night Live’-writing, complete night owl, Dracula-like creature who now has two kids and lives in the California suburbs.”
The original four cast members will give way to four more but Rich and Mulaney think the structure is sound and can take changes. It helps that each performer sits in chairs for the entire show and has a script in their lap should they need it.
“So many people can find a way into these stories that I am sure anyone coming in to do any of these pieces will be able to bring themselves to it and rise to the occasion of how good the writing is,” says Mulaney.
The replacements won’t slip into the exact performer’s spot just vacated — Rich says they’ll scramble the parts up. “It’s exciting for me to imagine how not just new individual performances will change things, but new pairings as well,” he says. “So many of the stories live in the scene work between two cast members and that’s another thrilling thing for me to imagine is those shifting dynamics.”
The audience at the Hudson Theatre during one recent performance was notably younger than for most Broadway shows and Mulaney and Rich hope they can do some theatrical recruitment with “All In.”
“I think we are finding that there are some first-time theatergoers or new theater goers that are coming and we’re thrilled by that,” says Rich. “We hope that comedy fans will enjoy this experience and that it’ll help convert them into theater fans and maybe they’ll see this show and want to check out more.”
—From AP reports
