From squid to chicken: Jung Ho Yeon shares life after ‘Squid Game’ at Manila visit

MANILA, Philippines — Since making history as the first Asian to bag a Best Actress Screen Actors Guild Award for “Squid Game,” Korean star Jung Ho Yeon revealed at her first Manila fan meet last Friday her friends’ joke about her new Netflix project after “Squid Game.”

Apart from starring in Apple+ TV series “Disclaimer” alongside Cate Blanchett, Ho Yeon bared that she is set to appear in the film “The Governesses,” and a new project with Netflix Korea, with a Korean title “Korean Fried Chicken.”

“My friends told me that why (did) you choose (projects with titles like) ‘Squid Game’ and then ‘fried chicken.’ Oh, what a coincidence!” she quipped at the event.

She apologized because she still can’t give more details about “Korean Fried Chicken.”

She recalled how much she can relate to her popular “Squid Game” character Kang Sae-byeok and like Sae-byeok, how working abroad makes her experience what Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) would normally feel when they are away from their families and homeland.

More than her heavy action sequences, she can relate to her “Squid Game” character as “really more on being in a different country, a different place where I did not grow up.”

“She had to go to this foreign place with a different culture, earn money there and live there – something that I had to do myself,” Ho Yeon professed via translation from Korean to English by event host Sam Oh.

Apart from her similarities with Sae-byeok, Ho Yeon was often asked about her dream roles: “I get asked about this question a lot and the answer is, I have none. It could be because I am very adventurous, and maybe because I’m greedy as well. I want to play all kinds of genres and I want to play all kinds of characters. And so, I don’t have an answer to that right now. I just want to explore many different things.”

When it was inquired how she prepares for a role, she divulged: “When I am offered a new role, I like to take my time to get to know this character, because for me, the first time I meet this character is different from the second and the third time. And then I like to not deal with this character at all.” 

Related: ‘Squid Game’ star Jung Ho Yeon shares impression of the Philippines, places to visit

She asks for a break from her team and the producers so she could make time to get to know her next role better.

With her busy schedule, she said it is important that she keeps her energy level at its peak, so she makes sure to take her multivitamins religiously, especially the Filipino brand she endorses, IAM Worldwide. She also always keeps herself hydrated. 

“It’s really about giving myself that mental space, emotional space just to be by myself and to process all of it and just go from there.”

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