Rosalind Chao (‘3 Body Problem’) on understanding the show’s mythology: ‘I felt like passing out because it was so dense’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

SPOILER ALERT: This video and article contain spoilers for this program.

“It was so hard to keep it a secret. I had to keep so much secret!” admits Rosalind Chao about her effort not to spoil the labyrinthine narrative at the center of Netflix’s chart-topping “3 Body Problem.” For our recent webchat she proudly adds, “There’s everything in this show, it’s not just sci-fi. There’s a love story, there’s the mother-daughter regrets, there’s just so much in there.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.

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Multiple Emmy-winning duo David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (“Game of Thrones”) serve as co-creators and producers of “3 Body Problem” with Alexander Woo (“True Blood”). The sci-fi drama is based on the Hugo Award-winning novel “The Three-Body Problem” by 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.

Chao stars as the present-day (and older) Ye Wenjie, a brilliant scientist who came of age during the oppressive Cultural Revolution of 1960s China, and becomes a revered astrophysicist concealing secrets from her dark past that will impact humanity’s future. The international production also stars Zine Tseng stars as the younger Ye, Jovan Adepo as Dr. Saul Durand and Eiza Gonzalez as Augustina “Auggie” Salazar, John Bradley as Jack Rooney, Liam Cunningham as Thomas Wade, Jess Hong as Jin Cheng, Marlo Kelly as Tatiana Haas, Alex Sharp as Will Downing, Sea Shimooka as Sophon, Benedict Wong as Clarence “Da” Shi and Jonathan Pryce as Mike Evans.

SEE Netflix’s ‘3 Body Problem’ will bring ‘Game of Thrones’ showrunners back to the Emmys

Now that the series has become a hit on Netflix, Chao is a bit more relaxed about divulging some of the show’s secrets. When asked about some of the surprise plot twists and big reveals, the actress recalls one scene in particular that she initially thought was pointless ended up becoming pivotal to the story. By the penultimate episode of the season (titled “Only Advance,” written by Benioff and Weiss and directed by Emmy and DGA nominee Jeremy Podeswa), the show’s antagonists have revealed themselves and their intentions. Ye meets with Saul (Adepo) in an attempt to pass on her knowledge about cosmic sociology by telling him a joke, that (we learn later) the omnipresent San-Ti shouldn’t be able to decipher. The seemingly inconspicuous joke ends as a cautionary tale, as Ye utters her final ominous words to Saul: “We warned you. Never play with God” as a way to alert him to the ‘dark forest’ concept first enlivened in the second titular novel in author Liu’s trilogy, i.e. the universe is a dark forest full of alien civilizations, both silent and potentially hostile, hiding within it.

“Initially when I saw, ‘do you want to hear a joke,’ and she tells a joke, I thought, shouldn’t it at least be a little bit funny? I didn’t get it,” Chao recalls. “It was one of the hottest days in history in England. We were in a turtleneck and all that, and I remember, as Dan [D.B. Weiss] started to go through all the details,” she explains, “that it’s her last ‘hint,’ I understood more. I do remember, as he was explaining to me, I felt like passing out because it was so dense. Then I went over it in my head again, thinking, well now, knowing the details of this, I have to play it differently than I had originally planned. The sun was setting and we’re losing light, and I think we got like, one take. That was a miracle! We’ve had a few of those little miracles there, where you know things worked out. I was glad I learned it really well, because if I screwed that up that would have been really bad!”

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