Before Squid Game, Lee Jung-jae never could have imagined himself as a Jedi. Even after the Netflix show hopscotched its way to global domination, he struggled to see it. “It was hard to decide when I first got the offer,” he tells GQ. “Not because I didn't want to do it, I had doubts of whether I would be able to pull it off.”
Jung-jae has been an action star in Korea for years – but Squid Game introduced him to an international audience at pace in his late 40s. In it, he played Seoung Gi-Hun, a gambler who risks his life to play a series of deadly children’s games in the hopes of winning billions.
With The Acolyte, Jung-jae is ready to take things to the next level. He was showrunner Leslye Headland's first choice for Master Sol, a wise and respected Jedi who leads an investigation when a member of his Order is murdered. Jung-jae says would have been happy to swing a lightsaber in a background role, but Sol is a significant character in the series. Whether he’s flexing his martial arts skills in battle, or anchoring emotional scenes with Amandla Stenberg’s Osha – Sol’s former padawan – Jung-jae proves he’s up to the task.
GQ: Squid Game was a massive hit. In the aftermath of that, how exciting has life been for you?
Lee Jung-jae: The greatest change after Squid Game was that I was able to get these huge offers. Being a part of the Star Wars franchise is something I really couldn't even imagine beforehand, and I thought it was very unbelievable. I actually didn't know that I'd have such a big part within The Acolyte because English is not my first language. By no means did I expect to have such an important role in the show with so many emotional lines and such a great character arc. I actually asked Leslye [Headland] why she gave me such a big role. I told her ‘I thought you’d just give me a lightsaber and I’d swing it around a couple times.’ I felt extremely thankful for her and I wanted to return this feeling by being able to perform very well as Master Sol.
Was there any day on set where things really clicked for you, and you knew you had nailed it?
I had countless conversations with Leslye in order to understand Sol better and also in order to understand the Star Wars universe better. And actually, I wasn't able to become Master Sol quickly, even though I wanted to. What was most helpful though in that process was talking to Leslye because Master Sol is a character that she created. I wanted to know why she made this character and her intentions behind the character. So I asked her a lot of questions, and she was able to explain things so thoroughly. In addition to that, Amandla [Stenberg], Leslye and I had several conversations about the relationship between Master Sol and Osha and Mae, and I think these conversations were extremely pivotal in the development of my character as well.
Well, let’s dig into that. What do you like most about Sol’s evolution over the course of the show? And what were the questions you would ask Leslye?
I think if you watch the middle of the season, there's a conversation or kind of a confession that Sol has, where he talks about how he got selected to be part of the Jedi Order. Even though it's not a very long monologue, you can really see how lonely he was as a younger version of himself, and you can really feel those emotions. That scene has the most important line for him and also for his relationship with Osha, because they have this shared feeling. This same feeling of loneliness exists in Osha. And because of these similarities between the two characters, I think they're really able to empathise with each other. In terms of the conversations I had with Amandla and Leslye, we talked a lot about the background of the characters and also the background of the story.
I really appreciate that The Acolyte is asking challenging questions when it comes to the Jedi. This is not a black and white show that’s about purely good characters against purely bad characters. There’s a lot of grey.
I think what's really important to the Jedi and even society as a whole is how much people are willing to sacrifice in order to maintain peace, and also how much we will push or force others to sacrifice for this piece. And I think this definition or understanding of sacrifice is different for each character within The Acolyte. Sol is in pain because he is constantly toiling over this question and he is in turmoil. He doesn't have a straight answer yet to this question of how far will I go? How far will I push others to go in order to maintain peace?
One of my favourite lines so far this season is when Master Sol says “Our memories are lessons. If we don’t meditate on the past, we’re doomed to repeat it.” Did you find yourself calling on memories of the past when you were working on The Acolyte?
I think because I did so many action films and shows in Korea, that experience was very informative when I was ready to shoot The Acolyte. And there were a lot of conversations I had with the action team. The type of action that Koreans like that I was used to was a type of action that's very powerful, yet realistic. And when I entered the stunt camp, I was really surprised and glad to see that the type of action they wanted to do for The Acolyte was very similar in this way, whether it was the camera position or how the actor stands in relation to the camera. We talked a lot about those types of details, and we wanted it to look as dangerous as possible without actually of course being dangerous. We wanted that tension to exist in those action scenes.
Season 2 of Squid Game is coming up later this year. Do you think Gi-Hun has it in him to kill the people responsible for the games, or do you think he’ll look to take them down in another way?
That would be spoiling. What I can tell you is that season 2 has a deeper context in the way that it looks [at] human behaviour. There's also more variety to the characters and when I was reading the script, I thought it was even more exciting than season one.
