Benedict Wong interview: ‘3 Body Problem’

“It takes an army and a village, and another army, and another village to make this,” declares Benedict Wong about ambitious sci-fi thriller “3 Body Problem.” The Netflix hit was co-created by multiple Emmy-winning “Game of Thrones” duo David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, who serve as co-creators and producers with writer/producer Alexander Woo (“True Blood”). For our recent webchat he adds, “This is a massive project to take on and I just thought, yeah, I’m in for this ride.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.

SEE Exclusive Video Interview: Rosalind Chao (‘3 Body Problem’)

“3 Body Problem” is based on the Hugo Award-winning novel “The Three-Body Problem” by Chinese author Liu Cixin, the first in Liu’s “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” trilogy. Benioff, Weiss and Woo co-wrote the pilot together, titled “Countdown,” which takes place in both 1960s China and modern-day England, where astrophysicists try to uncover and expose what is ultimately revealed as an existential threat to humanity from a distant and more advanced alien civilization known as the San-Ti. Wong plays former MI5 agent Clarence “Da” Shi, who’s tasked with investigating a mysterious string of deaths of the most prominent scientists around the world, eventually exposing a global conspiracy to manipulate scientific advancement at the behest of a looming intergalactic threat to humanity. The veteran British actor stars alongside Rosalind Chao and Zine Tseng as the older and younger version of Chinese astrophysicist Ye Wenjie, and a sprawling international cast including Jess Hong, Jovan Adepo, Eiza Gonzalez, Alex Sharp, Sea Shimooka, Marlo Kelly and “Game of Thrones” alums Jonathan Pryce, John Bradley and Liam Cunningham.

“I’ve been in the game for about 32 years now, so I rarely get a chance to play someone from the North,” Wong says about his chain-smoking, no-nonsense detective, who has the same dry and direct sense of humor that is common among fellow Mancunians like Wong himself, who grew up in Salford, a stone’s throw from Manchester. “It’s quite a launching pad for me to get my teeth into with Clarence, who’s so fully formed, complex and on such a massive journey arc with this story,” he says about the fan-favorite character. “He’s the bloodhound that you want and he’s the gumshoe. In a way, as an audience, you need him to guide you through this as well.”