You may be surprised to learn this, but Benedict Wong is not American. Most people think he is, he says (including, until a few days ago, half of our office), which is why his most recent role in 3 Body Problem is such a treat.
“They are a bit shocked,” he says, in his broad Mancunian accent, of fans who expect to meet the American-speaking Wong as seen in Marvel blockbusters like Doctor Strange. “It’s taken this long road to find a role to finally reveal myself as such. I’m glad that they went for me... and we [went] authentic with this version of Da Shi.”
The ‘they’ in question are the creators of Game of Thrones (David Benioff and DB Weiss) and True Blood (Alexander Woo), who have joined forces for what is set to be Netflix’s big release of the spring: a glossy adaptation of Chinese sci-fi writer Cixin Liu’s book Three Body Problem.
In it, Wong plays Da Shi, the no-nonsense, London-based detective trying to find out why top scientists around the world are dying. The role was quite literally written for him, as Wong found out when he read the character description: this version of Da Shi had parents from Hong Kong who emigrated to the UK, and was born in Manchester in the Seventies.
“He spent 20 years there and came down to London. I went, ‘Hang on, this sounds an awful lot like me.’ Then Alex [Woo] had to confess that they just copied my Wikipedia page. So at the back of my mind, I went, ‘Oh, wow, stalkers!’”
It’s not a surprise that acclaimed creatives are writing stuff for him, Benedict Wong is hot property in Hollywood right now. Starting out in cult British TV programmes such as 15 Storeys High and The Peter Serafinowicz Show, he’s segued into a blockbuster career that has seen him don the purple robes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s sorcerer Wong often opposite Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange.
Da Shi may be gruff and Wong the sorcerer may be brusque, but Wong the actor is not. Even through a screen – I’m in London, he’s in New York, “just on the edge of Central Park” – he’s a cheery presence, always ready to crack a joke.
Acting is what he’s always wanted to do. Born in Eccles, Lancashire, he spent his time in school being the funny kid (or as he describes it “trying to say the odd quip here and there”); as an adult, he screwed up his courage and interviewed for the performing arts course in Salford.
“I took a double brandy up at the pub before I went in and so I think I was fuelled by booze,” he says. “I mean, I've thankfully weaned myself off that now and can work soberly.” From there, Wong spent his formative years “collecting tickets and sweeping floors” at a Manchester theatre venue called the Green Room.
“Steve in the lighting box would circle all the best touring shows and I’d get half a lager and I would just absorb all this theatre,” he says. Another haunt was the Library Theatre, where “Judith the house manager knew I didn’t have any money but would sneak me in, and I'd watch the shows there. I owe a lot to the people of Manchester – you know, a free coffee here, just trying to survive in the arts.”
He almost didn’t. Relegated for years to bit-part roles based on racial stereotypes, he hit breaking point during an audition for Peter Kay’s sitcom Phoenix Nights, for a role that only required him to deliver one line.
“I was waiting for an hour and 40 minutes there and no one was coming out. It's quite soul destroying.” Wong left them a letter. “I just said, ‘Look, I'm better than this.’ It was almost like manifestation. I made sure that they got [the letter] and as soon as I left, I called my then-agent to say, that's it. I've had enough. I've had enough.”
Salvation arrived in the form of acclaimed 2002 film Dirty Pretty Things, in which he starred alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor and Audrey Tautou, which gave his career fresh momentum.
Wong is still one of only a very few British East Asian faces on our screens today. And though the industry has changed – he points to the massively successful Ghibli theatre show My Neighbour Totoro (“it’s a joy-spreader. I’ve never man-cried so much”) as proof – there’s still a long way to go, especially when it comes to his hometown.
“I just think the North hasn't done enough [for] East Asian [representation],” he says. “Even talking about just Coronation Street, you know, living in Salford and knowing where I came from, there was a chip shop or a takeaway a square mile away [run by East Asian owners]. It's there. It's part of the fabric of Manchester.
“I think they've been a bit lazy really. I couldn't get any roles in Manchester, and that was my first heartbreak, was having to leave my own town because I couldn't get employed there and I had to go to London.”
But London has its own problems. In addition to the issue of representation, up-and-coming actors face another barrier to entry: closing venues, slashed budgets and ever-shrinking opportunities to get on stage for those starting out in the industry.
Is there an arts crisis? “Massively,” he says, pointing to the Vault Festival’s recent closure. “That was utterly heartbreaking. I don't know how or why the government are squeezing us out at [those] seedling roots.
“We need all of that, the [whole] terrine of all the arts… of literally starting from the ground up. I just don't know where it's going to go. It makes it a lot harder, but artists are artists and we will create; you know, we'll find a space and make it happen.”
These days, Wong is an old hand at navigating the industry – he even represents himself, via a one-man agency he jokingly calls ‘Wong and Only Management’, ever since he let his old agent go some years back.
“The Christmas parties are a bit lonely. I'm just tending to get off with myself by the photocopier,” he laughs. “No, we are thriving. I signed my own Marvel deal and I think the next step now is building our production company.”
Has he ever been tempted find a new agent? “I've been courted by a few, but they all tend to get Gollum eyes for the Marvel contract.” And who can blame them: since assuming the role of Wong in 2016, he has become the MCU’s ace in the hole.
“God, everybody loves Wong,” Tatiana Maslany’s She-Hulk quipped to the audience when he made an appearance in her 2022 series. “It’s like giving the show Twitter armour for a week.”
Wong himself (the real one) is evidently thrilled at the turn his career has taken: a self-professed Marvel fan (”I used to collect all the Spider-Man comics”), he fondly recalls standing at the press junket next to comic book legend Stan Lee for his first role in Dr. Strange.
“I sidled up and with my teenage voice falsetto, saying, ‘You don't know me…’ but he turned around and said, ‘You’re Wong, and you’re great!’ I was like just, internally crying.”
They need that positivity, because there’s no denying that the MCU is in trouble at the moment. In addition to a spate of recent TV flops, there’s also been the much-publicised drama around Jonathan Majors’ recent conviction for assault – leading to him being dropped as the franchise’s next big bad, Kang.
Unsurprisingly, Wong is coy about the issue. “That's obviously something that's been dealt with in the media and court and law,” he says, but, “at Wong and Only Management, we just receive their calls, but I don't really call them.”
His own future is looking bright – and even if he decides to retire from life in the MCU, there’s always another career in the arts to fall back on: DJ’ing, thanks to his alter ego DJ Obi-Wong.
“DJ Obi-Wong... Can You Feel the Force? is the full title, but yeah, it's been around 10 years,” he says. He DJ’d the 3 Body Problem launch party, and has a habit of doing the same during shoots.
“I was doing [the Netflix show] Marco Polo... a whole lot of us would be in Budapest, Slovakia, Malaysia and we’d just take over wherever we were and create a party,” he says. “There was one out of season ski-lodge we took over on a Monday night… the owner wanted to keep me to be their DJ.”
His track of choice, too, seems strangely appropriate: “Let It Happen, the Soulwax remix of Tame Impala. My invitation to everyone: just let it happen.” Words to live by.
