Oh Young-soo of Squid Game wins Golden Globe award

Oh Young-soo (age 78, photo), who played Oh Il-nam in the Netflix series Squid Game, won the best supporting actor at the 79th Golden Globes Awards. It is the first time for a Korean actor to receive an award for best actor at the Golden Globes. This year is the third consecutive year for Korean entertainment contents/actor to win at the Golden Globes, after Parasite (2020), Minari (2021) winning the best foreign language film.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), which hosts the Awards, posted the news on its website on Jan 9(local time). “Upon hearing the news of the award, I said to myself ‘I‘m a decent man’ for the first time in my life,” said Oh, who is known as Kkanbu grandpa in his role in the series. “It is no longer ‘us in the world’, but ‘the world in us’.

Squid Game and leading actor Lee Jung-jae for Best Television Series and Best Leading Actor had been nominated for the first time for a Korean series/actor.


Hyo-Ju Son hjson@donga.com