Lorenzo Richelmy and Benedict Wong Talk Netflix’s Marco PoloPosted by Brad Balfour
December 11, 2014
Combining palace intrigue, international locations and exotic eroticism with lots of violent action and a healthy dose of nudity, the story of 13th century Italian explorer and traveler Marco Polo’s many years in the court of Mongoll ruler Kublai Khan has become the latest television series produced and distributed by Netflix, which has a 10 episode series that will debut on Netflix on December 12th at 12:01am PST.
To make it work, executive producer/writer John Fusco had to find just the right actors to play these impressive historical figure. In order to do so he enlisted Italian actor Lorenzo Richelmy to be Polo and British actor Benedict Wong play the great Khan.
The global cast also includes Joan Chen, Chin Han, Zhu Zhu, Olivia Cheng, Claudia Kim, Mahesh Jadu, Tom Wu, Remy Hii, Uli Latukefu and Rick Yune.
Though Richelmy is a relative newcomer, Wong has more substantial experience having been in films such as Prometheus and Sunshine. But because they have less of a pre-established public presence they really could give life the two legendary characters make their presence in this series something special.
Recently both sat down to discuss how they made both Polo and Khan come to life again and re-establish the unique relationship between these two men.
Q: Lorenzo you have so much energy. Did that help inform your character? What was it like on the set.
Lorenzo Richelmy: As the only Italian, I was like the black Italian sheep in the middle of these guys. I didn’t understand anything because [initially] I didn’t speak English, so this is what I achieved at the end of eight months.
At the beginning, I was scared as hell of all of this. When you do a job and put all of yourself in it, then you finally watch it and you’re happy with it [that’s great]. It’s the first time I watched something I did and really liked it. I was so relieved I wanted to say, “Yeah!”
Q: What was like learning English for Marco Polo?
LR: When I did the audition, they said, “We like you, but you cannot be the leading role if you cannot speak English….” For one week, I improved my English eight hours a day. I tried to chew the words. Then, a week after, I did an audition with Benedict Wong.
Q: Marco Polo met Kublai Khan and finally they were transforming each at the end. Do you think they hugged at one point like you two did?
Benedict Wong: Well, it’s quite possible how life imitates art as well. It’s an amazing adventure for Lorenzo. For all of us as well. Just to play these two iconic figures. Netflix and Weinstein have come together and given us this platform to play as well, getting all these people, assembling an amazing talent from 27 different countries, filming in Kazakhstan and Malaysia and Venice. We got our heads down and worked hard. We’ve got the battle scars to prove that and we trained hard for the first four weeks, and onwards as well throughout, for all these battle scenes. We’re really proud of this piece, definitely.
Q: So what was it like for you working with Benedict as Kublai?
LR: It was a holy moment when he was on set. Extras were terrified.
Q: You shot all over but it must have been great for you to shoot in Venice.
Venice — a piece of my heart is there. I realize how massive was the production because occupying Venice is pretty much impossible. An Italian movie could not do it. So, we were there, and when I realized we occupied two squares, three bridges, and there was a fake moon two kilos away just for the light on the river, I said, “Oh, my God!”
Q: Packing everybody up and going from Malaysia to Kazakhstan, that was in a sense a journey.
LR: We shot the journey of Marco Polo, but we did the journey without all of the crew. It was incredible and the atmosphere was weird for a TV production. In Venice, we occupied three squares, two bridges, put on a light balloon to create a fake moon effect on the river. That was in the middle of Venice, wow!
It’s almost impossible normally, to shoot in Venice, so it was amazing. It was just challenging. When you do the first movie — we are like a low budget movie — it’s that kind of feeling, that kind of atmosphere. We were surrounded by Academy Award winners, Emmy Award winners, everybody was trying to give their best for the project.
Really big people. Big, big people were all working together to make this happen. I’ve never seen someone yell at the other one. You have two Emmy Award winners, one says, “In Germany, we do this,” “Yeah, but in France, we do this, let’s try to mix it together and see what happens.” And it is amazing. It’s really like life, what the energy can create.
BW: International alchemy, isn’t it? That’s what we’ve kind of come up with.
LR: It was not easy. Netflix and John Fusco and all the directors were really smart and intelligent to create a group of people, five hundred people that worked perfectly together. A great machine.
Q: You’re English?
BW: I’m from Salford in the North.
Q: You two bring another whole set of elements to this dynamic. Did your English background in some way enhances playing the role of Kublai Khan, a character who has this sense of history about him?
BW: My English background, well…
Q: Or just in general, because I find he has this more–here’s this guy, he’s rushing into this strange culture and he’s just willing to immerse himself. And you’re the one that’s sort of imparting it.
BW: For me, when I first took on the role, I had about four and a half months before we went to start principal photography and I was looking into the character and just looking at these images of Kublai and knew that he was quite a huge guy and just gorging on organ meat.
I got myself up to it — I put about 30 pounds, weighing in at about 250-odd pounds. Just feeling that weight and kind of waddling around. It’s interesting playing someone that actually existed. I spoke to John Fusco, who is our aficionado on all things Mongol, and we had Mongolian cultural advisors.
I found out from him, what was his Chinese animal — he was an earth pig. The characteristics of these earth pigs is that they’re very business-astute, he’s got a wide circle of people around him, and has a real tendency to eat and drink a lot.
Already, that is Kublai Khan. I looked in further, deeper, as well, about the idea of gout and the emotional attachment of gout, someone who likes to dominate, who’s very impatient. So all of a sudden, we’re piecing together this man that is coming off the page. Someone who’s wanting to uphold the legacy of Genghis Khan and attempting to smash this wall that Genghis could never do, the wall of Xiangyang, and then unify China in order for him to become the first Mongolian emperor of China.
Q: You have to show this evolving relationship between you two and have to make assumptions about who these people are as people, not just historical characters. Obviously there’s a dynamic here, how did that develop? You just met each other and you find out who you are and start to work together.
LR: It was wonderful because we didn’t have much time to know each other before, so we just carried through by ourselves, and we found them and each other there, already there. So we knew each other [first] as characters, and then as people. What you see now was built on set. It was much more, “What are you doing with your characters? What am I doing with your character?”
Then we listened to each other. And of course, we know each other better. And we shot chronologically, so at the end of the story, our relationship is closer. But as I said before, I was the Italian one, so I don’t have to pretend so much. I was there, it was big, and it was fuckin’ scary. The atmosphere was scary for me. It comes naturally, it came naturally.
Q: And for you?
BW: We did meet on set, didn’t we? It’s interesting, as I said before, with this production, it seems to mirrors everything. Our first meeting, Lorenzo was learning English along the way and being in a far away country as well.
With regards to Kublai and his connection with Marco, he has this uncommon perception which he utilizes for Marco to become [Kublai’s] eyes and ears around his kingdom. Someone that’s at their top of their game, the CEO of the global empire, constantly surrounded by yes-people. All of a sudden he’s kind of got someone who kind of describes his lands so vividly you can taste it and see it.
Q: What did you love about your character Marco Polo?
LR: His curiosity. First of all, I’m Italian, and I love the fact that he can bring with himself the good skills of Italian people. Now, we are known for bad economy, bad politics, and pizza. We were a bit better than that before…. It’s beautiful because in that time, Italian people were explorers and poets, and he’s one of them….
It’s a strange story. This 17 years old guy from Venice walks towards China, living there for 20 years. We know about Marco Polo; he’s a merchant. Now, we know he went there for 20 years, and he brought back nothing. What kind of merchant is this? He was not a merchant. He was an explorer. He was there because of his curiosity.
Q: And Benedict, what impacted on you in playing Kublai Khan?
BW: People keep asking, “What was it like?” It’s like you’re so busy! You are so busy holding on and also making sure no one’s snapping at your heels, I think. It’s really interesting to play that and yet, also be a family man as well. The idea of legacy and making sure that your son, the next heir, will be ready and having to be kind of like a hard father.
Q: Well at least you had a real italian on set to make some pasta for the team?
BW: We had wonderful catering from New Zealand, actually. That was pretty nice.
LR: I always brought with me parmesan cheese and walnuts. And coffee. Press coffee. The coffee was terrible there.
Q: I can’t imagine an Italian not bringing some food.
LR: Olive oil, coffee, and parmesan cheese.
