“3 Body Problem”'s Jovan Adepo Says Creators Helped Cast 'Bond' by Taking Them to a UFC Fight (Exclusive)

The actor also tells PEOPLE how he wrapped his head around those heady science terms and what he hopes to see in a possible second season of the Netflix show

When actors work on a show, they might hit it off over coffee, a meal or in-between takes. But for the 3 Body Problem cast, bonding meant going the extra mile and attending a UFC fight.

During a recent interview with PEOPLE, Adepo discussed how two of the Netflix show’s creators, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, took members of the cast to check out a UFC match.

“Benioff and Weiss, obviously they created Game of Thrones, so they're really good at just making sure the bonding is organic,” he explains. “That [the UFC fight] was just one of the random things that they decided to take us to, to get a night out and be able to have some fun.”

“Early on in the filming process, it was still kind of like the back end of the pandemic, so a lot of us had to stay inside when we weren't filming,” he says. “Once England started to open up and become more lenient in their outdoor activities, that's when they took us out to do different things. … But there was no particular mission to go to the UFC. That was my first time, and it was so fun.”

Related: '3 Body Problem': A Glossary of All the Terms from Netflix's New Sci-Fi Series

In 3 Body Problem, adapted from Liu Cixin’s award-winning book of the same name, Adepo plays Saul Durand, a physics research assistant tasked with devising a way to stop an alien race called the San-Ti from invading Earth. It will take the traveling aliens nearly 400 years to arrive, but even then, humanity’s future is murky.

While the show takes viewers on a sprawling adventure through time and space, for Adepo, it meant keeping up with some complex physics concepts and science jargon. Thankfully, a consultant was always around to help him and other cast members understand the “foundational” terms so they could convincingly recite those terms onscreen. “I'm much better at writing essays than I am at mathematical equations,” Adepo quips.

That explains why Adepo, 35, originally sought to become a scriptwriter. But after auditioning for commercials, casting directors told him time and again that he should consider acting. Viola Davis, whom he met through a family friend soon after moving to Los Angeles, introduced the actor to a casting director who was instrumental in him landing his breakout role as Michael Murphy in The Leftovers. (Adepo and Davis would eventually costar in the 2016 drama Fences.)

The actor has played a wide range of roles in the years since, from a superhero in HBO’s Watchmen and a former Navy officer in Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan to a pandemic survivor in The Stand. But with 3 Body Problem, Adepo recognizes the book — and now the show — has a big following, one that includes Barack Obama and George R. R. Martin.

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“A lot of the audience who have watched can relate to at least someone in the show, and in the book as well,” he says. “I just think that there's a lot of different characters that are experiencing life in the same way that many people in the world are experiencing it in reality.”

Although 3 Body Problem hasn’t been officially renewed, Benioff recently told Collider that next season would “roughly follow” Cixin’s sequel book, The Dark Forest. If that's the case, Adepo would love to see his character Saul have the opportunity to “prove himself.”

“Throughout the first season, obviously people who have seen it can see that he's definitely just as gifted as his colleagues or his contemporaries, but he just hasn't really put the tools together to kind of succeed in life the way some of his friends have,” Adepo says. “But when he's thrown into this position of power ... I think audiences will want to get a chance to see if he actually rises to the occasion, if he can step up to the plate to do the job he's been tasked with.”

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 Season 1 of 3 Body Problem is available to stream on Netflix.

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