Hwang Dong-hyuk is speaking to me on set as he films the second series of his dystopian Netflix thriller, which sees hundreds of debt-laden contestants fight it out for a whopping cash prize, by playing a string of life-or-death children’s games.

In a recent interview with Jean Mackenzie for BBC, Hwang, who won a Best Directing Emmy back in 2022 for his work on Season 1 of the Netflix blockbuster, made a point to specify that industry chatter of him losing six teeth during the initial production wasn’t accurate. In fact, he lost more than that.

Creating “Squid Game” is just as dangerous as playing it. Hwang Dong-hyuk, the mastermind behind the South Korean thriller series on Netflix, recently told the BBC he lost “eight or nine” teeth filming the first season of the show.