British actors John Bradley and Alex Sharp are responsible for the most shocking and moving moments in Netflix’s mega-budget sci-fi saga, “3 Body Problem.”
The comeback show of “Game of Thrones” creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (with Alexander Woo of fellow HBO show “True Blood” as third showrunner) is based on Chinese writer Cixin Liu’s internationally-acclaimed trilogy of novels “Remembrance of Earth’s Past,” with “The Three-Body Problem” as the first book.
Raking in 11 million views in its first four days, “3 Body Problem” went on to claim the top spot on the English TV List with 15.6 million views, becoming Netflix’s most-streamed title of the week, as of April 3.
The STAR recently had an exclusive chat with Bradley (“Game of Thrones,” “North Shore,” “Moonfall”) and Sharp (“The Trial of the Chicago 7,” “To the Bone”), whose characters’ fates in the series will perhaps linger the most with viewers even long after they watched the show.
First, a warning: This article would discuss plot details specific to their roles.
“3 Body Problem” opens with the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the ‘60s, where a brutal murder of an intellectual leads to a decision that alters the fate of the universe.
In the present day, specifically in the UK, a series of strange deaths occur within the science community. A tight-knit group of brilliant young scientists, also known as Oxford Five, reunites to investigate after their own mentor dies.
Bradley and Sharp portray Jack Rooney, a physics genius-turned-snack business tycoon, and Will Downing, a physics teacher, respectively. Completing the quintet of brainiacs are Jovan Adepo as Saul Durand, a physics research assistant; Eiza González as Auggie Salazar, a nanotechnologist; and Jess Hong as Jin Cheng, a theoretical physicist.
It turns out there’s a looming invasion of hyper-advanced aliens also called the San-Ti. They’re dead set on taking over Earth because their own planet is “doomed” due to its “three-body problem” or being located in a solar system with three suns. The deaths of scientists, on the other hand, are connected to the hostile alien race’s efforts to scare humans into slowing or shutting down any work that would make their forthcoming colonization of Earth difficult. Their arrival is still light years away, but they have to do everything in their power to keep humans from catching up technologically.
The Oxford Five find themselves right smack in the fight for survival against this “greatest threat to humanity.”
The show’s major surprises lie in Bradley and Sharp’s story arcs. The actors themselves were “taken aback by so many twists and turns” in their storylines, as Sharp put it.
In the series, Will learns he has terminal cancer. He’s also been in love with Jin for the longest time. Crucial decisions are mostly driven by this unrequited love for her.
This includes choosing to end his life early and have his “cryogenically frozen” brain sent into space to intercept the incoming San-Ti fleet as part of the Staircase (spy probe) project of Jin despite the latter’s protests. Jin realizes she loves Will, too, but the confession comes too late.
On the other hand, Jack is the joker of the bunch, who provides comic relief in this otherwise dark apocalyptic series. The lighter scenes are courtesy of him, especially when he starts engaging in a virtual reality game with Jin. It turns out to be a recruitment tool for the growing human welcome party for the San-Ti.
But Jack possesses that “type of rebellious streak that’s not the type of thing that the alien invaders are looking for,” as Bradley put it in the press notes. “They want compliance, and they want people who are going to both literally and metaphorically play the game. But the sheer strength of Jack’s personality means that he’s not just going to be led along, and he’s brave enough to speak out if he doesn’t agree with something.”
And for the actor, whose “GOT” character Samwell Tarley survived a show famous for killing off beloved characters, at the end of Episode 3, his character Jack meets a tragic end in the hands of Tatiana (Marlo Kelly), a human emissary for the aliens. (Bradley is one of the “GOT” actors brought to “3 Body Problem,” alongside Liam Cunningham, Jonathan Pryce and Conleth Hill.)
When The STAR talked to both Sharp and Bradley, they reflected on what it was like playing their characters, who are the source, we dare say, of Season 1’s heartbreaks.
On what they thought about their characters’ storylines:
Sharp: “I was very moved the first time I read the scripts. You know, I think in the first few episodes, I kind of thought I knew where Will’s character was going.
“Not just in the literal sense of storytelling, but also like psychologically where that character might go. And I was very surprised.
“And, yeah, I just think the writing, the dialogue, the character development was just second to none.
“And the author, Kazuo Ishiguru, is my favorite author. He has this saying, which is that good art surprises convincingly. And I think David and Dan (D.B.), that was my experience reading, you know, on the page, and Alex Woo, I was just very surprised in a very convincing way.
“All the characters felt so, so real and I was really taken aback by so many twists and turns. But I believed every second of it so rooted in the trueness of the human condition.”
Bradley: “I identified very strongly with the character of Jack Rooney and what it means to, you know, to sort of occupy that kind of space within that group.
“He’s the person who doesn’t take life too seriously. He’s very comfortable with his place in the world. He’s very confident in himself.
“But I have to say there was a strand to his story arc in the script, which was taken out of the show, which was cut from the show. And I fought to try and keep it and they just decided they didn’t need it in the end.
“It was in the script as I read it, it was very clear that Jack had only very recently become rich after being poor his whole life. And then he suddenly gets all of this money and all of his dreams come true.
“There’s something about that which makes kind of, you know, his fate ultimately all the more heartbreaking. But you understand why they lose some of these strands sometimes.
“But in terms of the character, I thought that was quite a pivotal thing about him. I still kept that bit in my mind even though I knew it was going to be cut.
“I think it informs everything and just makes what happens to him all the more poignant and sad.”
On being part of a highly-anticipated production:
Bradley: “It was a long (filming) experience, I have to say. I’ve never been involved in a project that’s taken longer to shoot. We started in October 2021 and finally wrapped it in, I think, February 2023. So it was a very, very long time.
“And the exciting thing about it was to work for myself again and Alex (Sharp) for the first time with David and Dan (D.B.) and Alex Woo. I mean, for people who’ve never worked with them, I have to say it’s an experience that will change your professional life in terms of the way you approach your work…
“If you were to go onto one of their sets and say, there are guys on this set for whom this means everything. They’ve got all the responsibility on their shoulders. This is all their thing, they shoulder all of this burden.
“They’re the last guys you’d think would be because they’re so relaxed and they’re so friendly and they just make you feel good about yourself.
“And, you know, if I could work on a set like that for the rest of my career, I’d feel like the luckiest man in the industry. So just getting to work with them again was the most exciting thing.
“Having worked with them for 10 years, the fact that when they spoke to me about this part, it was an immediate yes.”
Sharp: “Just goes to show what we think of them and how exciting it is to work for them. Yeah, I mean, they’re inevitably under enormous pressure and stress creating a show this big.
“Just logistically, the things that they have to pull off as well as creatively, and you never even get a whiff of their stress.
“You know, they really protect the creatives on the show, and that’s quite a feat.
“And also, you know, hugely appreciated. They’re very collaborative and, yeah, they’re just amazing bosses, really.”
“3 Body Problem” is now streaming on Netflix.