In the Netflix adaptation of Liu Cixin’s trilogy “Trisolaris” you can recognize some familiar faces from “Game Of Thrones”. After all, it’s no wonder that David Benioff and DB Weiss are the ‘Game Of Thrones’ showrunners behind the new sci-fi series. Together with Alexander Woo, they launched “3 Body Problem” and brought a number of former colleagues on board.
These are of course very prominent John Bradley as scientist and entrepreneur Jack Rooney, Jonathan Price as Sant-Ti friendly Mike Evans and Liam Cunningham as intelligence chief Thomas Wade. In Game Of Thrones they played Samwell Tarly, the High Sparrow and Ser Davos Seaworth in that order. But another big “Game Of Thrones” star is hiding in “3 Body Problem” – if you blink, you’ll miss the cameo!
Cameo in episode 3 of the Netflix series
Benioff and Weiss are also ‘Game Of Thrones’ veterans Conleth Hill taken to her Netflix series. The Varys actor can be seen in “3 Body Problem” in episode 3 titled “The Destroyer of Worlds” – as Pope Gregory XIII.
In virtual reality, where users like Jack Rooney and Jin Cheng (Jess Hong) can immerse themselves using the helmet sent to them by the alien San-Ti (Chinese for ‘three bodies’) to solve the mystery of the three suns to resolve, various historical personalities appear. They guide the ‘players’ through the problem: how can a civilization survive if it is repeatedly plunged into (meteorological) chaos by the incalculable interplay between three suns and essentially has to start all over again?
Four “GoT” stars are not enough…
You can see Pope Gregory XIII in these virtual reality scenes. for example, Kublai Khan (Jenson Cheng), Marie Curie (Naoko Mori), Aristotle (Phil Wang), Alan Turing (Reece Shearsmith) and Isaac Newton (Mark Gatiss). And Mark Gatiss is the fifth “Game Of Thrones” actor in the group. His role in the fantasy series was not as big as that of his colleagues – but as Tycho Nestoris, director of the Iron Bank of Braavos, he appeared in at least four episodes.
That’s why Conleth Hill plays the Pope, of all people
Opposite DB Weiss explained that the choice of role for Conleth Hill was absolutely no coincidence: “Conleth is Catholic, so we thought it would be something that he would find super funny if he played the Pope, or not be funny at all. Apparently he was fine with it.”
David Benioff continued: “Everywhere we went on our journey for ‘Game Of Thrones,’ we found Conleth at the spot where the nearest church was worshiping on Sundays.”