Squid Games star tragically dies three months after cancer diagnosis

Only three months after being diagnosed with cancer, actress Lee Joo-Sil who played Park Mal Soon in Squid Games, has died. She played the mother of Hwang Jun Ho (Wi Ha Joon) and stepmother of Hwang In Ho (Lee Byung Hun) in the second season of the hit show.

According to The Chosun Ilbo, a Korean-language newspaper for South Korea, Lee Joo-Sil, who was 81, died at home in Uijeongbu, South Korea.

Lee Joo-Sil started her career as both a performer and voice actress in 1964 and appeared in Korean dramas such as the Country Diaries, The Uncanny Counter and The Present is Beautiful. Lee Jool-Sil also appeared in the action-horror film Train to Busan and appeared in the drama Beauty and Innocent Boy on KBS, which is a Korean broadcaster.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Squid Games, it became a cultural phenomenon after it premiered on Netflix back in 2021. After the second series which aired over Christmas became a global hit, fans have been eagerly anticipating a third series and don’t have to wait too much longer.

The third series of Squid Games will premiere on Netflix on June 27, 2025. The show will pick up where season two left off after the contestants of the games, including Gi-hun, staged a deadly coup which was eventually thwarted by the Front Man, who had been playing the games in disguise.

Actor Park Sung-hoon, who played the transgender character Hyun-ju in Squid Game Season 2, recently had to apologise after sharing explicit content on his Instagram page and said he did it by accident. The Korea Times reported during an interview that the actor did with local press that Park Sung-hoon said: “I came across the image in a DM (direct message) on Instagram while preparing to head out for a scheduled activity. It was just a few days after the show’s release, and I was in the middle of exchanging audience reactions with the team.”

“I was shocked by the image and thought it could cause issues. While attempting to forward it for review, something must have gone wrong. I still don’t fully understand how it happened, but when I looked back later, I realised it had been posted on my story. I deeply regret the error.”