‘Squid Game’ Star Jo Yu-ri Discusses the Emotional Challenge of Playing Pregnant Player 222: “Jun-hee Wanted to Leave the Game from the Get Go”

Squid Game Season 2 sees the first season’s winner, Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) volunteering to return to the lethal competition as Player 456. When Gi-hun wakes up in the show’s iconic dormitory, he’s unsettled to see just how much is the same — from the green sweatsuits to the game of “Red Light, Green Light” — while all the other players are different. Because Gi-hun is the only character to survive the games in the first season of the Netflix hit, Squid Game Season 2 had to create 455 new players.

And this time, one of them, Player 222, Kim Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri) is pregnant.

**Spoilers for Squid Game Season 2, now streaming on Netflix**

We first meet Kim Jun-hee waiting in a doctor’s office. She’s the only pregnant woman there alone as the father, Lee Myung-gi (Yim Si-wan) is too busy being courted to play Squid Game to answer her calls. Jun-hee also has one of the iconic invitation cards in her hands and she leaves the doctor’s office before her turn is called.

Once Jun-hee enters the competition as Player 222, she soon realizes Myung-gi is also there as Player 333. He also has a target on his back. The whole reason why Jun-hee, Myung-gi, and several other young people are even competing is because as a crypto influencer, 333 convinced his followers to sink savings into a scam investment.

As soon as people start to die during the violent game of “Red Light, Green Light,” Jun-hee realizes that these games are far from her best bet of providing for her unborn child. Squid Game star Jo Yu-ri told Decider during a recent roundtable interview that her pregnant character’s emotional state was a huge challenge “because Jun-hee wanted to leave the game from the get go.”

“She actually didn’t know what the actual game was when she first joined the game,” Jo said, revealing that Jun-hee never would have played had she known the stakes. “I actually could relate to that.”

As the pressure of the game intensifies, Myung-gi discovers Jun-hee is there and attempts to team up with her, to protect her. Ultimately, she rejects his offer, but in the final episodes, Jun-hee does pull her baby daddy aside to implore him to stay safe as the players turn on each other. What Jo Yu-ri revealed to Decider and the other outlets at the roundtable is that she did this not realizing that Myung-gi had already taken a life.

“I think what Jun-hee was trying to do was telling Myung-gi not to lose his humanity,” Jo said in response to a question posed by Cinemablend’s Alexandra Ramos. “Jun-hee actually had no idea what actually happened inside the restroom.”

“Looking at Myung-gi and all of the blood on his face Jun-hee wouldn’t have imagined that Myung-gi actually already has one person got killed. She just wanted to stop more killings.”

Of course, this is Squid Game, which means many people are killed by the time Squid Game Season 2 wraps up. However we’ll have to wait for Squid Game Season 3 to find out if Jun-hun and her baby manage to make it out alive.