Squid Game Season 3 Creator on How He Lost 10 Teeth During Production

Squid Game series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has lost at least 10 teeth while making three seasons of the popular Netflix series. He’d lost several teeth during the production of the first season, and then lost two more while developing the third and final chapter.

Hwang Dong-hyuk says he lost two more teeth during Squid Game Season 3

Hwang Dong-hyuk revealed during an interview with Entertainment Weekly that he had lost two more of his teeth during the production of Squid Game Season 3. He said, “I thought it was going to be okay, but this time I had to pull out two more teeth as well. I had to pull out about eight teeth in season 1, and now I have two teeth more out, and I haven’t put them back in yet. So I’m waiting for them.”

Previously, in an interview with BBC, Dong-hyuk stated that he lost “eight or nine” of his teeth due to the stress of making the inaugural season of the show. He had hoped that things would become easier due to his familiarity with the material.

While that was the case to a certain degree, according to Dong-hyuk, “the problem is that for season 2 and season 3, we had to shoot and write in one go.” He further shared, “It was as if we were making one season, and we tried as best as we could to bring in season 3 as fast as possible.”

The writer-director noted that the total amount of work was “much larger” and that they “had to shoot for around one year.” Per Dong-hyuk, this made the process “very physically demanding.”

The sophomore season of Squid Game ended on a cliffhanger. The rebellion started by Lee Jung-jae’s Seong Gi-hun ended in a disaster, and he was captured. Dong-hyuk promised that Season 3 would include “games that could really infuse fear in people with sheer height.” He also made it clear that the series would end with the third chapter.

The new season of Squid Game starts streaming on Netflix on June 27, 2025.