Anupam Tripathi On How Netflix's Hit Show, Squid Game, Has Changed His Life

Anupam Tripathi, Who Stars In Netflix’s Hit Show, Squid Game, Opens Up About Life In Korea, What India Means To Him, And How The Show Has Changed His Life

- Anjuly Mathai

“DO YOU STILL BELIEVE THAT humanity’s good?” asks Oh Il-nam, one of the characters in the Korean dystopian drama, Squid Game. The show follows 456 cash-strapped people who participate in a competition involving a series of Korean children’s games. The $38 million cash prize is tempting, but if they don’t qualify to the next round, the consequences are deadly… literally! When your life hangs in the balance, it seems people will go to any lengths to survive, and humanity’s “goodness” becomes nothing but a myth. But there is hope, and Anupam Tripathi’s character in the show, Ali Abdul, is proof of that. He plays a mild-mannered Pakistani immigrant, whose dire straits compel him to take part in the game.

Tripathi grew up in Delhi, where a stage production of Spartacus inspired him to get into acting. He was part of the Behroop theatre group in Delhi till 2010, when he went to study at the Korea National University of the Arts on a scholarship. Since graduation, he has acted in a number of Korean films and shows, like Ode to My Father (2014) and Descendants of the Sun (2016). When he passed the audition for Squid Game and got the script for the show, he was amazed at the substantial part Ali played in it. “I expected a few lines here and there,” says Tripathi. “Then when I read the script, I kept seeing more dialogues for my character. Initially, I was scared. But once you read it, you just become totally absorbed. It is amazing how well the characters are defined through the game and how they keep changing sides and forming their own teams within that space.”