Lee Jung-Jae Says His Cannes Directorial Debut ‘Hunt’ Is as Noir and Political as ‘Squid Game’
variety.comLee Jung-jae, who made history with his work on “Squid Game,” is now making his directorial debut with the spy movie “Hunt,” which is premiering at Cannes.Although he’s the first Asian to win the Critics Choice and Screen Actors Guild Awards for lead actor drama in Netflix’s dystopian drama, and likely will continue that history as the first to be nominated for an Emmy for a non-English speaking role, he hopes it won’t always be like this.“I hope later on we don’t need to put any boundaries like Asian men and non-Asian men,” he tells Variety. “I hope this boundary just doesn’t need to exist going forward.”While making “Hunt,” Lee described how he used persuasion versus control while working with actors. “Instead of control, I’d say we had a lot of conversations with the actors.
First, I listened to what they wanted to express through this script. Then I talked to them about what I thought they needed to do.
It was more like teamwork,” Lee says. “Because I’ve been acting for quite some time, I remember that where there were conversations with the director, my performance was more natural.”But just as “Squid Game” delves into socio-political matters underneath the immediate issues of survival, Lee says that “Hunt” at its core is about heavyweight issues of disinformation, propaganda and political manipulation.“The film was set 40 years ago, in the early 1980s.
And at that time, there was a lot of control of the media, control over information and fake news. And I thought we’re now in 2022 [we wouldn’t] see that anymore.
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