The Challenge’ Players Feared Death, Practice Cookie Game – Deadline read full article at worldnews365.me

SPOILER ALERT: This story features details from the first five episodes of Squid Game: The Challenge

EXCLUSIVE: Squid Game: The Challenge may look like a hyper-saturated fever dream, but for the contestants who plunged themselves into the world of the Korean megahit, it all felt deadly real.

Netflix welcomed 456 members of the public to its lavish reality show reimagining of Hwang Dong-hyuk‘s singular vision. For two players, the recreation was so accurate, it was like stepping into the screen.

Dash Katz (player 141) and Lorenzo Nobilio (161) tell Deadline that they were fans of the show before arriving at the wintery set of Squid Game: The Challenge at Cardington Studios, 50 miles north of London, earlier this year.

Any January blues were quickly blasted away when they came face-to-face with Young-hee, a menacing robotic doll who, in the original Squid Game, literally shoots anything that twitches in the show’s opening game, ‘Red Light, Green Light.’

Death was not an option for Netflix’s reality series, so producers Studio Lambert and The Garden saddled contestants with automated squibs that propelled black ink when they were eliminated.

“It definitely exceeded my expectations because the set was so realistic,” says Nobilio, an Italian private equity executive living in London. “It was a fully immersive experience … you actually feel you’re going to die for real.”

Dash adds: “When my friends would get eliminated, it would feel like they were really dying. And you see how I mourn, it was extremely extra.”

Nobilio and Katz both evaded the attentions of Young-hee, earning a ticket to the Squid Game dorm at London’s Wharf Studios, where the games really begin as contestants get their first sight at the cash prize of $4.56M.

Stripped of home comforts, including phones, coffee, and clocks, players were thrown into a reality-bending universe that Katz says was designed to inculcate chaos.

“With no windows and no clocks, you don’t know what time of the day it is, you don’t know how much sleep you’re getting. It was insane. It’s going to bring out the chaos,” Katz adds.

Nobilio likens the experience to being in a Las Vegas casino, except the odds of winning are even slimmer than betting against the house, given only one player can walk away with the cash prize.

Katz, who uses the pronouns they/them, entered the show with a social strategy. They wanted to befriend anyone willing to form an alliance, but when kicked off a tug-of-war team in episode three, Katz chose to target players who “betrayed me first.”

The conflict did not make the final cut, but Katz’s retaliation was included in the show. “I look like a total snake. Those people that I was aligned with had lied to me first, but you didn’t see that. I may look like a savage, but my back was against the wall,” they say.

As a reality TV superfan, Katz knows the grammar of the genre and doesn’t hold any grudges against Netflix for their portrayal on the show, even if it did potentially fuel homophobic abuse on social media.

Inside the Squid Game dorm, Katz says they felt totally supported by producers. “When I was mistreated by other players, there were therapists as part of welfare on set. I felt very validated,” Katz recalls.

Nobilio adds that “mental health was not underestimated in the show.” Although Nobilio exudes self-assurance — to the point where he brazenly steals an extra helping of food in episode one — he felt isolated at times because he was outnumbered by Americans.

In preparation for their experience, Katz studied Squid Game lore before entering the show, even memorizing Korean numbers. Nobilio went to the gym because he thought that strength training might improve his chances of success.

Both admit to feverishly practicing cookie scratching for Squid Game’s second game in which players must prize out a shape from a honeycomb dalgona candy using only a sewing needle. Katz says it is the only reason they passed the task — and with just a second to spare.

Despite the intensity of the experience, the New York-based model says they would do it all again. As for eliminated contestants who have complained about conditions during filming, such as the cold temperatures that led to some people requiring medical treatment in ‘Red Light, Green Light,’ Katz reminds fellow players of the spirit of the show.

“This is not Barney & Friends, this is Squid Game,” Katz smiles. “Y’all know what you signed up for.”