Actor Lee Jung Jae Learned The Most From Working With Jung Ho Yeon On “Squid Game”

A recent YouTube video posted to Vanity Fair‘s official account is an interview of twenty-one high-profile actors, including Squid Game‘s Lee Jung Jae, Jung Ho Yeon, and Park Hae Soo, asking them to share their acting experiences.

Squid Game quickly became an internationally viral K-Drama when Netflix released the captivating show.

The K-Drama centers around Seong Gi Hun (played by Lee Jung Jae), who gets fired from his job and tries to evade loan sharks. He is invited to join a mysterious game that boasts a massive financial prize for the winner. Other contestants include his childhood friend Cho Sang Woo (played by Park Hae Soo) and North Korean defector Kang Sae Byeok (played by Jung Ho Yeon). The contestants compete in a series of deathly childhood-inspired games.

Due to the immense success of the series, Squid Game has already been confirmed for a second season.

And, of course, three of the talented actors from the show were invited to take part in Vanity Fair‘s interview about the world of acting.

One of the questions asked in the interview was about the co-star that the actors had learned the most from.

Name a co-star who you learned the most from.

–Vanity Fair

And while all of the actors talked about how they were inspired to work harder and learned many lessons from their co-stars, experienced actor Lee Jung Jae didn’t hesitate to choose Jung Ho Yeon as the actor he’d learned the most from.

Lee Jung Jae is an experienced actor who has been working in the industry for over 30 years. He has always been an incredibly prominent and successful actor in South Korea, and Squid Game‘s success furthered his status internationally.

In stark contrast, while Jung Ho Yeon captivated viewers of Squid Game with her incredibly emotional acting, it was her first acting role as she primarily worked as a talented model.

But Lee Jung Jae shared with Vanity Fair that Jung Ho Yeon’s inexperience in acting is actually what played an instrumental role in helping him re-discover his own passion.

There’s a certain energy you can feel from a performer who hasn’t been acting for very long. It’s a very strong and free energy. Observing that through Ho Yeon reminded me that I too had that energy once.

-Lee Jung Jae

And it’s undeniable that Jung Ho Yeon truly gave her all to her performance as Kang Sae Byeok in Squid Game. In the same interview, she explained that all of her scenes were incredibly difficult to film.

Almost everything [was difficult to film].

-Jung Ho Yeon

But she always gave her all, and the energy mentioned by Lee Jung Jae was truly expressed in her dedication to filming all her scenes.

But I would say the bathroom scene [was the most difficult to film]. In episode eight when [Kang Sae Byeok is] stabbed with the glass, it was hard to imagine what she feels like at the end.

-Jung Ho Yeon

And yet, even though Jung Ho Yeon struggled a bit with the difficulty of acting in her first role, she truly gave her all to do her character justice.

And it is undoubtedly a great accolade for a talented actor like Lee Jung Jae to already acknowledge her acting prowess. Hopefully, fans will be able to see the two act together in the future.