Posted in: Netflix, TV | Tagged: 3 Body Problem, Alexander Woo, D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, Liu Cixin, netflix, Rosalind Choa, science fiction

3 Body Problem: Rosalind Chao Discusses Playing a Tragic Character

3 Body Problem has gotten Rosalind Chao long-overdue attention for an underrated career. Now, she discusses her role in the Netflix series.

Rosalind Chao is getting some long overdue attention for her career of underrated work, and 3 Body Problem has brought her the most attention since she starred in The Joy Luck Club and played Keiko O'Brien on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In the Netflix adaptation of Liu Cixin's epic Science Fiction novel, she plays the elder incarnation of Ye Wenjie, the genius astrophysicist who survived China's Cultural Revolution in her youth with a deep well of trauma that makes her the most tragic and important character in the story. Ye Wenjie makes the one decision that causes everything in the story to happen. When we first see her, Ye Wenjie is a mother in mourning. She is the whole reason for the 3 Body Problem and talks about it as part of a career-spanning interview with Vanity Fair.

On "3 Body Problem's" Most Violent Scene

"I rewound that so many times. It really exceeded my imagination. The way they melded the different stories and expanded it to make it universal—I knew Dan Weiss, David Benioff, and Alex Woo were great writers and producers. And then when I did the audiobook, I wrote them a love letter … which I never sent."

Defending D.B. Weiss and David Benioff 

"I will fight those people to the death. I feel very protective of them. If I ever read anything negative about them, I am so tempted to answer. They take such care of us. I'll give you an example. When Ye gets her big reveal and has that speech, it was my second day. I'm presented kinda like the Hall of Presidents at Disneyland. I'm with Ben Kingsley's son Edmund, and I forgot I was miked, and I muttered something like, "I feel like a robot." Both of them came running out: "Wait, Roz, you wanna redo this?" And they took the time to explain the vision. They are like that all the way through."

On The Impact of The Cultural Revolution on Her Own Family 

"A lot of my family remained in China after my parents left. There are no remnants of the past. No photos of my mother. But nobody talks about it. If you ask somebody about it, they really don't want to. It's very Chinese to say if something bad happens, okay, it's over now. That's kind of the way I was raised. There's a cover on the emotions from people of that period. And Ye is like that. Like the scenes we shot in the prison, I kept having to hold back. Which was tough opposite Benedict Wong, because he's so good it's hard not to react. If I was Roz instead of Ye, I would have blabbed everything."

Is Ye Wenjie a Good Guy or Something More Complicated? 

"She's trying to save the world and in the process, she's looking at it as there must be sacrifices. With the trauma she's had in her history, she can rationalize things. Me, Rosalind? I can't kill a bug. I chase after them with a cup and set them outside. Ye, though, thinks of people as bugs and sets out a roach motel."

On Reading New Edition of "3 Body Problem" Audiobook

Chao has recorded a new audiobook of the first book in the 3 Body Problem trilogy for the US publisher Macmillan, which compensates for the Netflix series truncating her character's long and complex, more nuanced story arc. She makes it feel like Ye Wenjie is narrating the story in hindsight: "It took six days. It's very dense. There's one chapter that's like, all science."

3 Body Problem is streaming on Netflix.

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