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Grand game maker from global hit 'Squid Game' returns to theater

After the actors from the drama achieved global fame, all eyes were on their next career moves as most of stars were bombarded with so many offers of advertisements and roles in other dramas.
One of them was Squid Game's grand game-maker Oh Il-nam played, by actor O Yeong-su, and this 77-year-old veteran actor chose to return to the stage, where he spent more than 50 years of his life and where he started his career in 1963 as a member of a theater troupe.
When asked why he chose a play, he said he wanted to get back to the basics.

"As I became well-known through Squid Game, I felt like I was losing control even at my age. The offer for the play came, and I believe this was a good chance for me to find self-restraint and be motivated to put focus back on the theater again."

He is to play the role of Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud in the play "Last Session" a duo-drama centered around the atheist Freud and theist C.S. Lewis’s heated debate on God and religion. Filled with so many abstract and symbolic terms, he says memorizing lines is sometimes demanding, but says it is good to see how the play delivers the meaning of life through old but skilled actors' voices.

"I feel like plays, movies and TV shows are mainly about incidents rather than a life. A person's later years is a necessary part of life, but as most shows do not try to show life, a lot of elderly actors are losing opportunities on stage. I hope more senior actors will be presented through movies or plays that show the beauty of a person's later years."

Having played around two-hundred different characters on stage, he underlined the importance of following one's own dreams without any doubts, during an additional personal interview.

"Why wouldn't I have had my twists and turns while working as an actor for more than 50 years? There were times when I struggled and floundered. What I would like to say, is do what you want to do with confidence."

Staying true to one's beliefs and remaining balanced may be a difficult challenge especially when faced with a huge tide of change.
Hoping he will be remembered as an actor who stuck to his own path, O says he will continue to do his best until his last role.
Kim Bo-kyoung, Arirang news.