The Kiwi Taking Netflix By Storm
The critically acclaimed Chinese Sci-fi that people have literally been dying to make has finally arrived for western audiences via Netflix. While the story is almost too big to truly fit the TV format satisfyingly, one part everybody can agree on is the performances of the stellar cast.
Jess Hong in particular has been a critical darling for her performance. She’s a kiwi who’s had small parts in a few shows before now, but now finds herself hanging with the Game of Thrones alumni and a bevy of others. We picked her brain on how the experience has been.
Tell us a bit about your audition process and how you were cast as Jin.
I’m from New Zealand, and I first auditioned with a self-tape and I sent it away. At the time it was just an untitled project. Then through Zoom auditions, meetings with the producers, and chemistry reads over about three months, I was finally cast. And then finally I found out what the show was, and I flew over here to London.
Were you familiar with the book trilogy the series is based on before you were cast?
No, but as soon as I found out what it was, I went and I downloaded all the books on Kindle.
Apart from reading the books, how did you prep for this role?
Because I am not a scientist, I wanted to delve into the world of physics as much as possible, but in a way that was fun for me and made me excited about it. I listened to podcasts, especially one called “The Infinite Monkey Cage” by Professor Brian Cox and Robin Ince. It provides an entertaining way into science. I listened to a bunch of TED Talks, read books, and learned about string theory. I learned about anything I could that made me feel really passionate about the subject.
What was it like working with the showrunners David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo.
I first met them on Zoom in a little town in New Zealand. I was quite nervous to meet them, but they’re actually really chill dudes, and very sweet. They’ve been on set every day from the beginning, and it’s such a relief to know that the people who wrote the show are there, because you could go and chat to them if you had any questions. It’s been really awesome working with them, they’re very open to suggestions, to collaboration. They trust in actors to have an opinion, and to be able to craft the character themselves. They’re not controlling in that way, they’re really cool.
Have you had any discussions with them, or conversations, about balancing staying true to the books while also expanding this story for the screen?
They’ve stayed true to certain parts. The narrative of the first book runs through the show, but they’ve also pulled characters from other books. For instance, my character’s actually from the third book, but she appears and plays the game as if she’s this other character. I think that they quietly make sure from the back that everything’s going how it needs to go, but they let you otherwise do things how you feel needs to be done, they let you follow your instincts, so it’s been really great.
What was it like getting to work with the Eiza González, Alex Sharp, John Bradley, and Jovan Adepo?
Everyone was really really cool to work with. We actually didn’t get to hang out together as a group so much because we’re usually split off. But in the scenes when we’re all together, I’d get really excited. We’d see each other, we’d hang out, chat, and everyone’s so funny and so different as well. I feel like our combined energies are really chaotic. Everyone’s really cool and talented, and I learned so much from them.
