How did they cast 456 players?
What was the food like?
What’s up with those ink packs?
Players in ‘Squid Game: The Challenge’.Courtesy of Netflix
Producers John Hay, Toni Ireland, and Stephen Yemoh break it all down.
WARNING: This article contains mild spoilers forSquid Game: The Challengeepisodes 1-5.
The only thing missing?
Players on ‘Squid Game: The Challenge’ play Red Light Green Light.Courtesy of Netflix
The threat of literal death, since (thankfully!)
no one is actually getting murdered onSquid Game: The Challenge.
But how did producers accurately recreateSquid Gamein real life?
Players on ‘Squid Game: The Challenge’.netflix
What was it like living in that giant dorm, competing in the games, and eating the food?
And who will walk away as the ultimate winner?
TONI IRELAND:We had three casting teams a normal reality show would have one.
Players on ‘Squid Game: The Challenge’.Courtesy of Netflix
What was the breakdown of American cast vs. international?
We were inviting people to apply, and then potential contestants filled in utility forms online.
JOHN HAY:We had over 80,000 people apply.
Players on ‘Squid Game: The Challenge’.Courtesy of Netflix
That’s not anything that we ever had to do before and it was quite extraordinary.
Did everyone film confessionals?
Because getting 456 interviews sounds like a massive undertaking.
How much happened during a day?
They woke up around eight o’clock each day, exactly as you see on the show.
Nothing too crazy, there weren’t like two days without sleep or anything like that.
IRELAND:They weren’t really sleep-deprived.
They got a good night’s sleep and they slept pretty well in the bunk beds.
HAY:This is hopefully obvious, but they lived in that set.
That was part of the reason it felt so immersive.
What was the food like, and were they restricted to only one serving of the meals?
YEMOH:Yes, they were all told that they should take one meal.
There wasnt a case of anybody going without, but that was definitely a rule.
IRELAND:It wasnt a free-for-all.
Other people complained a lot more.
We couldn’t actually believe that when we watched that happening.
We were like, “He’s not …
It was the perfect moment where a player emerged organically as a villain archetype.
HAY:It was perfect, as long as you’ve got them [on camera]!
But we decided to lean into that.
Some of the people that you most thought were going to win would suddenly make an exit.
IRELAND:And even as producers, you have no control.
We sat there and watched it all happen live.
Something reality show fans notice or look for is who is getting “the winners edit,” a.k.a.
But that also makes some reality show winners predictable.
With a cast this large, is that something you were thinking about as you edited each episode?
YEMOH:We knew that the chances were that we likely couldn’t feature the winner from episode 1.
HAY:But maybe we have.
We had to try and ensure every day that every single player was on camera so we had options.
YEMOH:You talk about that winner’s edit, its a really good point.
If that happens to happen, great.
IRELAND:We were conscious of people looking out for that.
The beauty ofSquid Gameis that anything can change in a game and you might’t predict anything.
Getting the balance right between showing the hits and new material was a major challenge.
We play a lot with those pre-game choices.
IRELAND:That’s one of the most exciting creative challenges for me.
How do you make the choice of the shapes in Dalgona interesting?
Because they know what they’re walking into.
If they walk into that room, no one’s picking an umbrella.
They’ve done it again.
I was like, Not possible.
No one’s made the same mistake again.
Then Spencer becomes this incredible character that we didn’t know we had.
Was Red Light, Green Light the most complicated game since it had the most players?
IRELAND:We’d like to say yes, but each game brought its own challenges.
We overlooked Dalgona as just a biscuit game, but it’s not.
It’s actually quite complicated to get the perfect biscuit recipes to play.
The testing that went into it, we had about 19 different recipes.
HAY:It was recipe 19 that was successful in the end.
It was exactly fair for every round of player that went in there.
YEMOH:That’s the way it all starts: How do you make it fair?
Why have ink packs explode when someone is eliminated?
Were players told to dramatize their “deaths” because of that?
There’s the enjoyable awareness about the process.
We’re just trying to do something that is true to the game.
Some people dont have big reactions and others really go for it, and it’s their moment.
If they wanted to do that, that’s absolutely fine by us.
YEMOH:We never told them to act in a big dramatic moment.
How is the finale/final challenge going to compare to what we saw on the scripted show?
IRELAND:I can give you a clue that they don’t fight to the physical death.
Other than that, I think we’re probably going to keep it under wraps.
New episodes ofSquid Game: The Challengepremiere Wednesdays on Netflix.
