Squid Game actress Hoyeon, who plays pickpocket Kang Sae-byeok in the hit series, has undoubtedly become the biggest breakout star of the show and has subsequently been in demand since its premiere.
Fresh off of her SAG Award win for Best Female Actor in a Drama Series, Hoyeon, who previously went by Jung Ho-yeon, has been cast in Alfonso Cuarón’s upcoming thriller Disclaimer.
The series, which is being made for Apple TV+, already boasts an all-star cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Sacha Baron Cohen and Kodi Smit-McPhee and is based on the novel of the same name by Renee Knight.
Cuarón has received 10 Academy Award nominations, winning four including Best Director for Gravity (2013) and Roma (2018), Best Film Editing for Gravity, and Best Cinematography for Roma. He was the first Mexico-born filmmaker to win the Academy Award for Best Director. Disclaimer will mark the first time Cuarón has written and directed all episodes of an original series.
The show will see Blanchett play Catherine Ravenscroft, a “successful and respected television documentary journalist whose work has been built on revealing the concealed transgressions of long-respected institutions.”
Per the show’s synopsis, “when an intriguing novel written by a widower (Kline) appears on her bedside table, she is horrified to realise she is a key character in a story that she had hoped was long buried in the past. A story that reveals her darkest secret. A secret she thought was hers alone.”
Hoyeon will take on the role of Kim, who is described as “ambitious, hardworking, and eager-to-please. … Kim knows that working for Ravenscroft is going to be her big break.”
The South Korean actress knows a thing or two about big breaks, having been catapulted to global stardom through Squid Game, which ranks as Netflix’s most-watched series ever. Hoyeon, who had previously appeared on Korea’s Next Top Model, saw her Instagram following balloon from 410,000 followers in September 2021 to a massive 13 million followers by October that same year. She was also recently announced as Louis Vuitton’s new global Maison Ambassador.
During her acceptance speech for the Best Actress nod at the SAG Awards, the actress thanked her fellow performers for opening the door for her.
“I have sat many a time watching you on the big screen, dreaming of one day becoming an actor. I just want to say thank you so much,” she said via a translator. Her co-star Lee Jung-jae, who plays lead character Seong Gi-hun in Squid Game, took home the trophy for Best Male Actor in a Drama Series.
The dystopian thriller has been renewed for a second season by Netflix, but no plot or cast details have been revealed as yet.
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