'Squid Game' Makes History With Multiple SAG Awards 2022 Wins
The international Netflix hit Squid Game made history during the Screen Actors Guild Awards Sunday night. Squid Game became the first show not in the English language to win a SAG award. By the end of the night, the series took home three awards, leaving Hollywood stars like Brian Cox, Jennifer Aniston, and Reese Witherspoon going home empty-handed.
Lee Jung-jae, who plays Seong Gi-hun, won Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series. His competition included Succession stars Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, and Kiernan Culkin; and The Morning Show star Billy Crudup. HoYeon Jung's performance as Kang Sae-byeok helped her beat out The Morning Show stars Aniston and Witherspoon, Succession's Sarah Snook, and The Handmaid's Tale star Elisabeth Moss.
The show's third award came for Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Comedy or Drama Series. Squid Game's competition in that category included Netflix's Cobra Kai, HBO's Mare of Easttown, and the Disney+ Marvel shows The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki.
Although Squid Game won the most trophies among television shows, it did not take home the top award. Succession won Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. The other nominees in the category were The Handmaid's Tale, Yellowstone, and The Morning Show. Squid Game's next big chance to shock Hollywood comes at the 74th Emmy Awards in September.
Squid Game was written, directed, and created by Hwang Dong-hyuk. The nine-episode show centers on a group of people in deep financial debt who risk their lives to play children's games to win a monetary prize. The game is deadly though, and losing means death. Netflix released the first season on Sept. 17, 2021, and the show instantly became an international hit. Within the first four weeks after its release, it surpassed Bridgerton as the most-watched show in Netflix's history.
In January, Netflix confirmed a second season is officially in the works. Hwang had been talking about developing more episodes for weeks, but it took a while for Netflix to officially greenlight it.
"If there were to be a season 2, in the first season that we saw Gi-hun is a character whose humanity is shown through or exposed in certain situations," Hwang told Entertainment Weekly in December. "In other words, his humanity is shown through a very passive manner. But I would think that in the second season, what he has learned from the games and his experience in the first season, they will all be put to use in a more active manner."