Squid Game 3 star Park Gyu-young apologized for leaking spoilers for the first time.
On Dec. 2, an interview was held with Park Gyu-young, the lead actor of Netflix's Squid Game Season 3, at a cafe in Seoul's Sokgye-dong.
Squid Game 3 depicts the final fate of Gi-hoon, who enters the game again with his own purpose and loses his best friend, and the Front Man, who hides his identity and sneaks into the game, as well as the remaining participants who survive in the brutal game. Season 1 was first released in September 2021, creating a global sensation and breaking all-time viewing records, capturing audiences worldwide. Season 2 was introduced in December 2024, culminating in the final series.
Squid Game 3 recorded 60,100,000 views just three days after its release, maintaining the number one position in all 93 countries that calculate Netflix's TOP 10, including Korea, the U.S., Japan, France, and Brazil. This marked Netflix's first work to achieve the number one spot across all countries in its opening week, proving its exceptional commercial success. Additionally, it entered the top nine of Netflix's all-time series (non-English) in its opening week, with Seasons 1, 2, and 3 all ranking in the top 10 of Netflix's most popular series (non-English). Furthermore, in the global TOP 10, which tallies viewership from the past week, Season 2 ranked third and Season 1 ranked sixth, proving its significant interest from global fans.
Park Gyu-young plays the role of No-eul, a defector from North Korea. She struggles to find her daughter left behind in North Korea while appearing as a Pink Guard who points a gun at the game participants. However, despite her impressive performance in Season 2, she caused a scandal by leaking a major spoiler just before the release of Season 3.
In January of this year, Park Gyu-young posted behind-the-scenes photos on her personal SNS, which led to speculation that a male actor wearing the same Pink Guard costume as Park Gyu-young might have inadvertently revealed an important twist of Season 3. As the controversy grew, she quickly deleted the photo; however, it had already spread across various online communities. Regarding this, Director Hwang Dong-hyuk said, "I can't say anything more about it since it was a mistake. A mistake is a mistake, and forgiveness is forgiveness," and added, "We need to put the past behind us and move forward, so I think of it as a one-time event and we handled it well."
Before the interview began, Park Gyu-young said, "I think I may have disappointed you by not showing a good side of myself over the past few months, but I believe this is a moment where I can speak to you directly in your eyes," adding, "There were questions I avoided for fear of harming the work, and I hope this can be a place where I can speak about those stories directly to your face. I will make it a place where I can speak candidly."
Park Gyu-young mentioned that the 'bad side' was the 'spoiler,' noting, "I think I caused disappointment with the spoiler issue on SNS, and I also received direct questions during the release event but I couldn't give proper answers. When I first posted the photo, I immediately contacted the production team, the director, and senior Jin-wook, apologizing. They told me, 'Let's make sure this mistake never happens again.' Senior Jin-wook also reassured me that he was really okay with it. While I was forgiven, I reflected a lot on how responsible I was towards the work and how short-sighted and immature I had been, taking a long time to contemplate and introspect."
Although I received questions at the release event, the reason I avoided them was that "to be honest, the director had answered first, and if I said, 'I'm sorry,' it would seem like I was indicating that 'it will start like this, as in the spoiler.' So, I held back and couldn't express my apologies. I think I also got flustered, and now that it's been released, I want to take this opportunity to say that 'it was indeed my mistake, and without any excuse, I regret that I was foolish.'"
Additionally, to the viewers who suffered the most due to the spoiler, I would like to sincerely apologize without any excuses. You must have had high expectations for Season 3, but I believe you started the series already anticipating the storyline. I genuinely apologize without any excuse and wanted to take this opportunity to express that.
Meanwhile, Squid Game 3 was released on Netflix on the 27th of last month in over 190 countries worldwide.
[Photo] Provided by Netflix
[OSEN]