Benedict Wong explains his “Game of Thrones” role that could've been
There could've been a world in which the Marvel actor shared the screen with his "3 Body Problem" costar Liam Cunningham.
Prior to working together on 3 Body Problem, Benedict Wong and Liam Cunningham could have shared the screen on Game of Thrones.
In an interview with EW, Wong talks about the role that almost was while Cunningham shares more light on what the part would've been specifically. They explain how series creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss called up the Marvel star way back when with a character in mind.
"I think it was for a role of a banker or something," Wong tells EW.
"You would've been in a scene with me!" Cunningham exclaims. "In the Bank of Braavos."
In the sixth episode of Game of Thrones season 4, titled "The Laws of Gods and Men," Cunningham's Ser Davos visits the Iron Bank in Braavos with Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane). They meet with a banker named Tycho Nestoris (Mark Gatiss) in the hopes of securing funds they desperately need.
"Me and Stephen Dillane need to get some money to start a war. That would've been cool!" Cunningham recalls of that scene and the Wong casting that could've been. (The moment can viewed in HBO's official "Inside the Episode" segment from season 4, below.)
All these years later, the two are finally working together on 3 Body Problem, which is also spearheaded by Benioff and Weiss, as well as a third showrunner, Alex Woo.
"Your ears perk up as soon as [casting directors] Robert Sterne and Nina Gold say they want to speak with you," Wong says of his journey to the new Netflix sci-fi series. "I was filming Doctor Strange [in the Multiverse of Madness] at the time. I had a Zoom, and Alex Woo was involved as well. [With] the character breakdown, I thought, 'this is similar to me,' and Alex confessed he copied by Wikipedia page. So they were very keen."
3 Body Problem adapts the first book of the internationally recognized sci-fi trilogy by Liu Cixin. In China, amid the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, astrophysics prodigy Ye Wenjie (newcomer Zine Tseng) works for a mysterious sect of the government trying to make contact with alien life. A decision she makes in this timeline has drastic ripple effects in the present day, when some of the world's most brilliant minds are mysteriously dying under unusual circumstances.
Wong stars as Da Shi, an ex-intelligence officer investigating the deaths who's led to the Oxford 5, a group of scientists in the U.K. who are now being toyed with by an alien presence. Cunningham appears as Wade, head of the world’s most elite intelligence operation. The two actors maintain a playful relationship both on and off screen.
"He hates me. He just hides it well," Cunningham jokes of his costar.
"They pay me for this," Wong cracks.
3 Body Problem premieres on Netflix March 21.
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