Front Man Lee Byung-hun Joins Squid Game Season 2: Villain Reveals Tragic Backstory

Warning: This article contains some major spoilers from the second season of Netflix’s “Squid Game.”

While the identity of Front Man, the main villain of the “Squid Game,” was finally revealed at the end of the hit Netflix show’s first season, his shocking backstory will be revealed in the upcoming second season.

Lee Byung-hun — who returns as the front man running the twisted games in the new season premiering Dec. 26 — told NBC News that his character is more complex than what fans were initially shown. The frontman, whose name is In-ho, harbors a painful past that includes the death of his wife and mounting medical debt. With this plotline, Lee said, he hopes to show how his character became an “extreme pessimist.”

“As an actor, what was really most important to me was to be able to tell the story of the frontman’s past,” Lee said in Korean through a translator. “He is someone who believes there is no hope left in the world, who believes there is an absolute absence of humanity.”

The upcoming season revolves around Gi-hun, or Player 456, as he chooses to re-enter the game three years after already being crowned the winner. This time, Gi-hun is determined to put an end to the murderous competition and protect her fellow players. But unbeknownst to the contestants, Front Man, a former winner of the game who continued to run the horrific experiment, has disguised himself as Player 001. And he secretly ensures that the game continues.

In a scene where he shares a moment with Gi-hun and the other competitors, Player 001 tells them that his wife has acute cirrhosis and needs a liver transplant. She is also pregnant. And while the doctor suggested she terminate the pregnancy, she refused. As the couple struggled to find a donor, he tells the group he borrowed as much money as he could, but it wasn’t enough.

“Then one of my oldest salesmen heard about my situation and offered to help. But people saw it as a bribe. I was fired from my job. I had devoted all my youth to it. These fights were my last hope,” he said. “I really need that money, even if it is blood money, to save my wife and our child.”

But the frontman’s alter-ego isn’t all made up, Lee said. And in an earlier episode, In-ho’s brother, police officer Jun-ho, is seen visiting the grave of In-ho’s late wife.

“The fake persona that he takes on in the game — that’s actually his own story,” Lee said of the series of devastating events that led to the frontman’s rise.

Despite the twisted nature of his character and the series’ dark themes that raise questions around humanity and inequality, Lee said he personally continues to resist pessimism.

“As we go through our daily lives, despite the many disappointments we experience … what allows us to live day by day is the little piece of hope that we carry within us,” Lee said. “‘Squid Game,’ although it’s a very condensed version of the reality we live in, it’s a very extreme version that reflects the dark side of the world.”

The second season of the Netflix series follows the wildly popular first, which became the platform’s most-watched show of all time, racking up 1.65 billion hours streamed in the first four weeks of its 2021 debut. The new season has already earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Drama Series. But director Hwang Dong-hyuk said it was not easier to make the show the second time around.

“Because Season 1 was so universally loved, when it was decided that there would be a second season, it’s true that I felt enormous pressure,” Hwang said. “So many people out there said, ‘Season 1 was perfect. Why don’t you just end it with Season 1?'”

Hwang said he ended up using the talk as a “creative catalyst.”