“Kung Fu” Exclusive: Yvonne Chapman Talks Zhilan’s “Tragic” Backstory, the Birth of Her Villain, & More

The CW’s mid-season drama Kung Fu features an antagonist we just can’t get enough of. As the hard-edged and cunning assassin Zhilan, Yvonne Chapman captivates and commands the screen in every single frame. In an exclusive interview with PopWire, the absolutely delightful Canadian-born actress discusses Zhilan’s challenging childhood, the scene that was “such a joy” to film, and what’s to come for her character for the rest of the season.

Yvonne describes Zhilan as being alluring, intricate, incredibly intelligent, and dangerous. At the same time, however, her character is heartbreaking as well. “She has this incredible backstory that’s just tragic,” Chapman tells us. Viewers got to see a little of that backstory in episode 7 of Kung Fu‘s first season. Though we couldn’t tell, that little girl was going through a lot of pain.

RELATED | “Kung Fu” Episode ‘Destiny’ Recap: Search Party

In the episode titled “Guidance,” we are transported to Guizhou, China where we see young Zhilan in a leg brace, and her big sister telling their father they need to go to an herbalist. Their baba has plans to sell the sword of Liang Diayu that they’ve been guarding so that they can use the money to get Zhilan proper care. “With Mr. Tan’s money, we can get the treatment you need,” he tells her.

“[Zhilan] has spina bifida,” Chapman explains. “The condition that she was born with is a spinal defect. She always put on a brave face as a child, but she went through a lot of painful surgeries growing up. She had a lot of experimental treatments and she didn’t have the best doctors.”

Chapman reveals that in the return episode, “Isolation,” we will see a little bit of the actual scars she wears because of those surgeries. “It was a really painful moment of her life and still is, so it’s almost a reminder for her of what she’s had to go through as a child growing up.”

Two decades after being abandoned by her sister after accidentally killing their father, Zhilan returns to her childhood home and discovers Pei-Ling (Vanessa Kai) waiting inside. “Why did you run? Why did you leave me?” a tearful Zhilan asks her. It was an “incredibly emotional” scene that led to the younger sister demanding the sword Pei-Ling had devoted her whole life to guarding. For that scene, Chapman was very appreciative and grateful for Michael Goi, the director of the episode.

“He really just allowed us the space to be [our characters] in that moment, and to work off each other and find and unearth all of the difficulties of this relationship between the two sisters,” she says. “In this scene, [Zhilan hasn’t] seen her for 20 years, so this is an outpouring of rage and sadness and all of that that just lives and was buried for so, so long.

“With me and Vanessa, it was such a dance in trying to maneuver the emotional content of these two sisters, but it was also such a joy,” she continues. “It was almost like breathing, like being able to take a deep breath of fresh air after being underwater for so long. That’s how it felt like for Zhilan. It was just this outpouring of emotion for her and not knowing really what to do in that moment.”

When Zhilan finds out that Pei-Ling still has the sword, at that moment, you start to see where her innocence starts to fade. “[Zhilan] could have tried to understand her sister and say, ‘Okay, you know what? It happened in the past. I have a choice here.’ But she did choose her own destiny as well in this moment. In that moment, when she asks for the sword, for me, that was the birth of the villain.”

After learning that her uncle had sold her mother’s scroll, which contained secrets of all the weapons, Zhilan heads to Taipei to retrieve it. Kerwin Tan (Ludi Lin) finds the uninvited villain in the backseat of his car, “not that I’d ask you to leave,” he tells her. The assassin tells him she’s on the hunt for the scroll, and though “friends” is a “charmingly middle-class concept” to the man, he’s all in.

The meeting with Kerwin, and everything else that will follow, will bring out something within the assassin that we’ve never seen before. “You’ll start to see a different side of Zhilan, because she’s been a lone wolf this entire time,” Chapman says. “And now she’s taken on Kerwin Tan as, so to speak, a reluctant partner in all of this, so you’re going to see that partnership develop.”

RELATED | Nicky, Zhilan, Henry, & More “Kung Fu” Season 1 Character Posters

Over the next few episodes, we will see a lot of that partnership in action, which begs the question: will he be a possible love interest? “Yes,” Chapman says immediately with a laugh. “I can say that because it was already alluded to back when Ludi was cast. So, yeah, him and I will have some moments.”

Aside from “Zhirwin,” Yvonne Chapman says “there’s so much more to come” for the remaining episodes. “There’s going to be some huge developments in the story that I think are going to be rather unexpected,” she teases. “A lot more is coming up for everybody else’s storylines as well. The second half of this season really, really ramps up everything.”

Kung Fu returns Wednesday, June 23 at 8pm on The CW. Every episode will be available to stream on The CW App and CWTV.com the day after broadcast for free and without a subscription, log-in or authentication required.