"Marco Polo" Star Zhu Zhu Sings a Song of Miracle Prop Trees

I'm here with the insanely gorgeous Juju.

Great to see you. Thank you.

Now do you have in China, do you have something called a girl crush? Do you know what that is?

I know kind of know what it means. Yeah. And I kind of know how it feels.

Oh you do? I'm feeling it right now.

Oh no, stop. I was gonna say the same thing about you.

Are you just saying that because you knew I was gonna say it?

No.

Good answer. Good answer. I like you already. You're very kind in China. Um what your name, is there an English translation? That you know of?

Yeah. Well, it's it's pronounced the same Juju. My family name is Ju and my first name is also Ju. Um but the characters are different. The first one means red and the second one means pearl so it means red pearl.

Wow. Why don't we have things like that in America? It's not fair. It's not fair.

It's but it's a bit, you know, strange because it's like people whose name is like Tom Tom or Mary Mary. Right.

But I think it's so cute and it's perfect for Hollywood.

Yeah. Well, a lot of people think that it's artist name, but it's not. Yeah. I was um my parents gave me that name when I was born.

Um so did I hear that you actually used to do what I do? You used to be an MTV VJ in China. How old were you when you did that? Was it in your teens?

Yeah. Kind of no actually I was I was yeah. I was uh towards the end of my college years.

Yeah. And how did that happen?

Um I it's a long story. I studied electro engineering. I knew that I wasn't going to be an engineer and I was looking for things that I would love to do. And then um I love singing. I love performing since I um ever since I was little. So I joined the contest of MTV talent search and I did I joined the singing competition actually and I won I took the first place in Beijing and the third place national final. And that's how MTV knew about me. And then later they need somebody who can speak Chinese and English uh for this TV show called MTV English. Um and they they called me saying if I want to do it as a part-time job and I I did it.

Are you into like top 40 kind of things because I'm assuming that's what you did.

Yeah, that's what I did.

Are you into like One Direction or anything like that? Any boy crushes aside from the girl crushes?

One Directions might be a little too young for me.

Does that mean I'm too old to like Harry Styles? Cause I still think he's cute.

But you know, I don't know why but I I'm more into like vintage guys.

Oh, like you?

Like no but I like older older guys. Well, I remember that I interviewed James Blunt once and I've I was really nervous. I don't know why because usually I don't get nervous. I I wouldn't admit that I I you know, I had a crush on him but but I was really really nervous like my my palm was sweating and I feel like my my face was red and I I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. I forgot everything.

I've had a few of those in here. Trust me. When Pharrell came in, it was kinda the same thing. Yeah. So let's talk about Marco Polo. I am already obsessed with it and it hasn't even come out yet. First of all you and Lorenzo, I know you have a love story together. The two of you together, I cannot wait to watch. You do you do kinda have like steamy love scenes in the show. And that like I guess when you were to break the ice he took you and you did Tequila shots. So there was some like Oh.

Well, uh that happened on the day we met. Um

You just break the ice with Tequila.

Yeah we just met each other and I was like let's do some Tequila shots.

Oh, so it was your idea.

No, it was.

Wow. And so this was like right before you started shooting together?

Yeah. Well but but I I guess he was just being himself and being Italian.

Yes. Yeah. So his last name is pronounced because you can do it with a good Italian accent. I know.

Um I would I can try. Yeah. Last name is uh Richelmy.

There you go. Much better than I could say it. It's an original show for Netflix. It's the Weinstein Company. And it looks so epic. I mean the scale and I know you shot in Italy, I know you shot in Kazakhstan, Malaysia. Just give me a sense of just being on that sets of a production and just you know, the experience of it all.

The whole thing is epic. And it's it's it's huge. We have a thousand people on set. And then also we shot in Kazakhstan and uh um the landscape was amazing. So we shot it in a place where there's deserts and step and snow mountain and and and a canyon and everything all together. Um in a in the same land. And then there's no not many trees. Maybe not at all. And but there's only one tree which is the tree that we we have a lot of scenes at. I was just really everyday I'm sitting there admiring that tree. I was like wow what a great, you know, life. And one day um one of our like prop people saying Juju stop staring at tree at that tree it's a fake tree. I'm like no. Don't tell me that. And then he's like yeah, we we carried it here and we glued it into the ground with concrete. I was like no. Don't tell me that. And then and then um my dialog coach Joe was next to me saying that's a lie because I saw that tree the tree is blooming. And then and then the and then they start to argue with each other and the three of us went to the tree and it was really blooming. And it was also really was a dead tree that it that was um glued into the ground. But it was also blooming. Yeah. So we called it a blooming dying tree. I wrote a song. I'll just sing part of it. Tonight where the stars all shine. You glow so bright in my childish mind.

Not only did we have a musical instrument because the doorbell went off. That will just ring when you sing but my girl crush just went from here to like way up here. That's incredible.

Thank you. Well, it sounds so much better with instruments.

No it sounded fantastic. Trust me. Just before we go can you teach me any Chinese?

Sure.

Can you teach me how to say I love you?

Wǒ ài nǐ.

Wǒ ài nǐ.

Wǒ ài nǐ.

Yeah. Perfect. You have a really good pronunciation. Now I can say that to people and they'll know what I'm saying. I can say it at an inappropriate time and they'll have no idea what I'm saying.

You can say it if Lorenzo comes here.

Can you make that happen? Cause he is mighty cute. You have a good job.

Yeah. And I'm very lucky to be able to work with somebody that is first of all really gorgeous and second well first I think he's a great actor. He's very professional and he's very talented. He was really he was natural born great actor.

Thank you for coming in.

Thank you.

You are just so delightful. It's so refreshing to see a classy lovely actress in Hollywood. So thanks for coming in. Congrats on the show. I can't wait to watch it. A Netflix subscription is gonna happen very quickly just so I can watch this. Thanks again for coming in.

Thank you.