3 Body Problem Is About Saving Humanity. Does the Cast Think Humanity’s Worth Saving?
The post 3 Body Problem Is About Saving Humanity. Does the Cast Think Humanity’s Worth Saving? appeared first on Consequence.
[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for 3 Body Problem, Season 1 Episode 2, “Red Coast.”]
Here’s a funny story from the set of 3 Body Problem, courtesy of co-showrunner David Benioff: “We did a poll on set, while we were shooting the season, of the crew: If you were in Ye Wenjie’s shoes, would you push the button and summon the aliens? And I don’t remember the exact count, but it was pretty close to 50/50. About half the crew said, ‘Yes, I would summon the aliens to come fix this mess — or just wipe it all out.'”
When you watch the Netflix adaptation of Liu Cixin’s novels, Ye Wenjie’s choice at the end of Episode 2, “Red Coast,” stands out, for the exact reason why so many of those making the show saw Ye’s point-of-view — it’s hard not to relate, just a little bit.
Ye’s circumstances in the sci-fi drama are very specific, of course: Her first successful communication with the alien race soon to be known as the San-Ti comes with a warning — if they come to Earth, they will come as conquerors. Yet, as a 1970s Chinese scientist trapped in a brutal regime, she feels like this is the only option she really has.
Jess Hong, who plays one of the scientists caught up in understanding the San-Ti’s pending arrival, says that “Those are very particular circumstances that [Ye Wenjie] is facing. And in that context, you can actually relate and go, you know what, yeah. I would also be like… No, no, maybe I wouldn’t.” She laughs. “But in that situation, it’s easier to be swayed into thinking that it’s not worth it and maybe someone else should come in from the outside and save us all. And I think she did think she was saving the human race.”
That’s at least how Zine Tseng and Rosalind Chao, the actors who play Ye Wenjie at different ages, feel about it. In shooting that moment, Tseng laughs that on a personal level, “My reaction was like, ‘Good. Period.’ Like, yes, it’s what should happen.”
Chao, Ye Wenjie’s older self, elaborates: “She had no choice at that time. She’s isolated. She’s suffered extreme trauma. And as far as she knows, the world is coming to an end. This is not a hopeful world in nature and in humanity. And her action, I believe, is a way of righting that wrong.”
Tseng adds that from her perspective as the younger Ye, “I thought it was the only hope for myself” — though, Chao elaborates, “Zine is saying, ‘That’s the only hope for myself’ — that’s the young Ye thinking that. And I am referring to it as a hopefulness for humanity. I think that’s where Ye eventually goes.”
Because while Ye Wenjie’s actions might be seen as disastrous for the human race, Chao believes that the character “is an optimist, that her actions are naive at times. Sometimes naivete comes out of hopefulness, and I think she believes that humanity will survive. It will just transition. I think people of that era — they become used to just adapting to change, adapting to extreme change. And I think Ye is a part of that, and as a result, she feels like humanity should adapt to extreme change. Which is what she makes happen.”
For cast member Alex Sharp, the question of what 3 Body Problem aims to say on this matter is an “interesting and sometimes uncomfortable” one, since “it’s a slightly awkwardly honest mirror to humanity. I kept looking at [the show] and thinking, ‘How does this reflect how we respond to such things? How have we historically responded to existential threats?'”
We have something close to an answer to that in the year 2024, as Benioff notes. A lot of the show’s development took place over Zoom during the pandemic, and while “the books represent a fairly optimistic view, I think, of how humanity might come together in the face of a existential threat,” the producer adds that “COVID didn’t turn out to be existential, but it was certainly a threat, and I wouldn’t say it showed humanity coming together in any meaningful way. In fact, it probably showed us splitting apart even more.”
That feeling, Benioff continues, “definitely informed our writing [of the show], because you think about — if aliens announced their intention to invade, is everyone going to suddenly link arms and say, we’re off to fight the aliens? Or are some people going to say, ‘I don’t believe that, that’s a conspiracy. This is the US government is doing this, or Elon Musk has been planning this thing, whatever.’ There’s going to be a whole bunch of bizarre theories out there. And we probably won’t see humanity come together in any meaningful way.”
“This is what we’re dealing with, in the actual world itself,” Benedict Wong says. “Does it take this existential threat to make us really look into ourselves? I think that’s the question the drama poses.”
Wong’s character, Clarence Shi, works closely with the chief architect of humanity’s response to the San-Ti threat, played by Liam Cunningham. Cunningham says that, in the course of playing the role, he never thought about whether humanity deserves to be saved. “In my mind, and certainly my character’s mind, it’s about the protection of humanity. It’s making sure that we remain undefeated, that our species continues. And certainly my character is very single-minded, very driven, to make sure that the survival of the planet continues.”
As an actor, Cummingham continues, knowing that your character has that sort of singular focus “gives you something to hang your hat on.” Even something like executing the operation that leads to the oil tanker Judgment Day getting deli-sliced “is very illustrative of where his mind is. He will go through this as bullet points — he won’t be sitting down and having some sort of existential crisis about it. He’s not biting his nails about this stuff. This is what needs to be done.”
Adds Cunningham, “We’re saving humanity here. Everything else is bullshit.”
3 Body Problem (Netflix)
Saving humanity may be the job of both Clarence and Wade, but Cunningham also says that “it’s not a moral choice. It’s a job. And that’s what I kind of like about it. It’s, it’s their project, save humanity. I don’t think either of them think it’s worth saving.”
“I don’t even know that they sit down and really quantify that,” Wong says.
“They’re very, very single-minded,” Cunningham agrees. “And sometimes the most efficient people are single-minded.”
Just the idea of the San-Ti was disquieting for cast member Jovan Adepo — “the possibility that if there were other beings, and if we were to connect with them one day, that they would consider us like bugs. That’s scary ass-shit. Excuse my language, but that’s scary, for them to consider us bugs. Because I know what I do to bugs. To feel like my ego is just completely wiped away because there’s a being that’s far more advanced than you and knows it — that’s terrifying to me.”
Yet John Bradley, who plays a former Oxford student-turned-businessman, notes that 3 Body Problem “paradoxically makes you focus on individuals, but it also takes a much more detached and meta view of the human race… It goes in very microscopic about what it means to be a human and in a broader sense, just what it means to be alive. And they’re very different and quite kind of contradictory things, if you think about humanity’s place in the world, and its place in the wider universe.”
Sharp agrees: “The themes of this story literally make humanity the bugs, the unsentient ants who do not understand the scope of the universe that they’re inhabiting. Which can be slightly upsetting, in a way. But very interesting.”
Ultimately, Chao feels like the show has less to say about the worth of humanity and “more to say about our vulnerability as human beings, and our instincts and our ability to trust in one another.”
Because in the end, as Tseng says, “Humanity’s worth is not an idea. It is the main struggle.”
3 Body Problem is streaming now on Netflix.
3 Body Problem Is About Saving Humanity. Does the Cast Think Humanity’s Worth Saving?
Liz Shannon Miller
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