Pictures: Robert Trathen
Walking red carpets in Los Angeles, London and Texas earlier this year, Jess Hong didn’t know where to look. The camera flashes and reporters calling her name startled the Kiwi actress, who had never been to glitzy premiere events quite like these.
“It was very awkward,” she laughs. “Like, ‘Tell me what to do! Which way do I turn?’”
Hailed as the breakout star of Netflix’s top-streaming new show 3 Body Problem, a sci-fi alien-invasion series with a very human heart, Jess, 29, is in hot demand.
She’s stunned by how far she’s come from the painfully shy, anxious little girl who grew up in Palmerston North. She couldn’t look anyone in the eye or start a conversation.
Jess tells, “At intermediate, if one of the popular kids spoke to me, they’d be like, ‘Oh, my God, everyone, I got Jessica to talk!’ Signing up to drama class in high school was my self-help challenge – a way to put myself in an uncomfortable situation in order to grow – and it really worked. I got lucky that I loved it almost immediately.”
Knowing that she could overcome the challenge is a tool that Jess – who graduated from Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School – has used ever since. It’s a strategy that helped her leave family and friends to live in London for a year while filming 3 Body Problem.
“I’d never lived by myself and never lived in another country. They were two things I really wanted to experience,” says the star of Kiwi shows Inked and Creamerie. “It was lonely at first, but then so freeing.”
Back home in Auckland, she lives with a flatmate “who I love”, she says. “Being home feels like I can breathe properly now – inhale fully.”
She’s adjusting to the fame that’s come with playing Jin Cheng. Jin is a brilliant particle physicist who reunites with her scientist friends to destroy an alien invasion.
“It’s another reason I love Aotearoa – people don’t really care if you’re famous,” Jess says. “I was in café the other day, just working on my laptop, when the woman working next to me looked over and asked, ‘Are you that actress from 3 Body Problem? My partner and I are really enjoying it’. Then we turned back to our laptops and started working again. I love it.”
Collaborating on the show with Game Of Thrones creators David Benioff and DB Weiss, plus True Blood writer Alexander Woo, took a while to get used to, admits Jess.
“I’ve never worked on huge soundstages before and we’d spend a lot of time in front of the blue screens because of all the game-world scenes in the show,” she explains. “The scale was beyond anything I’d done or even imagined I’d do. At first, I felt very small and battled with imposter syndrome.
“But with the amazing support from my castmates and the showrunners – who were shockingly laid-back for such big names – I felt held through the whole experience and eventually realised, ‘I am capable. I can do this’. I just start running with it.”
While travelling around New Zealand, visiting primary schools with a “very nourishing” Duffy Books in Homes theatre show, Jess received a request to send in a self-taped audition for an unnamed but significant project. She even did a virtual read with British actor Alex Sharp, who plays her smitten fellow scientist Will Downing, from a kid’s classroom desk.
“It was great because it distracted me from having any kind of expectation or attachment. Despite the fact I kept getting called back,” says Jess. She never finished the tour. Instead, she flew to London for the 11-month shoot.
She read all of Liu Cixin’s Remembrance Of Earth’s Past trilogy, adapted for 3 Body Problem, and listened to a science podcast to prepare for the role. But she soon realised she didn’t need to think like a scientist: “This is a story about people.”
The show’s creators later made Jess’ character a Kiwi, adding words from the actress’ slang to the script.
Jess sees some of herself in Jin. She says, “Like her, I’m flawed, but also I’m an optimist. And I think Jin and I both share the same idealism. We can’t see necessarily how a better future comes about, but we just believe it’s possible. We keep putting one foot in front of the other and driving forward with hope.”
With a cheeky grin, she adds, “And I’m also a genius, you know!”
Ahead of Jess is a well-earned holiday in South Korea. She’ll also spend time helping a friend with an appeal to send Reemi period underwear to Palestinian women in Gaza. As if that weren’t enough, she’s also the lead in upcoming Kiwi horror movie Grafted and would love her next acting project to be “a little off the cuff”.
Naturally, she hopes there will be more seasons of 3 Body Problem, which will only heighten her star status. But this time, she’s ready for it!
3 Body Problem is now streaming on Netflix. Jess is also speaking about the book it was based on at the Auckland Writers Festival on 18 May. For tickets, visit writersfestival.co.nz.
