A Field Guide To Olivia Cheng

Canadian actress Olivia Cheng just made her nude debut in Netflix's "Marco Polo" – and after watching her kick ass, take names, and cut up three soldiers, all while totally naked, we're itching to know a good deal more about her.

Olivia Sonya Cheng was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1979. (We're not sure what date – googling "Olivia Cheng birthday" offers up info on this lovely lady, who is a teensy bit older than the "Marco Polo" star.) The child of Chinese immigrants, she grew up bilingual, in a large part due to her parents efforts to create the Edmonton Mandarin Bilingual program within the city’s public school system. Cheng credits this program with not only giving her the ability to speak Mandarin, but also instilling respect and reverence for her culture – both of which dramatically shaped her approach to her role in "Marco Polo."

You know what else shaped her role in said Netflix series? Her ability to act – which, coincidentally, she also spent her childhood honing. Cheng enrolled in acting lessons at the age of six, booking her first commercial at age 19. But despite her early affinity for acting, her career went other places first. After high school, Cheng initially enrolled in the University of Alberta (she'd earned a scholarship and early admittance to the commerce program), but she soon discovered that commerce wasn't quite for her. After a year in the program, she left the University of Alberta and enrolled in Northern Alberta Institute of Technology's radio and television arts program. This second program proved more fruitful: upon graduation, Cheng became a videographer for Global TV Lethbridge, then moved back to Edmonton to pursue a career as a print and broadcast journalist. At the height of her journalism career, Cheng was a correspondent for Entertainment Tonight Canada (yes, Canada has its own Entertainment Tonight) – feel free to check out her highlights reel over here.

But in spite of her success as a journalist, Cheng still longed to make it as an actress. Through the early aughts, she booked a few roles here and there (Jenna Lee in "The Twelve Days of Christmas Eve," Beautiful Girl in "Mentors"), but it wasn't until 2006 that her career truly took off thanks to a certain actor/director known as Robert Duvall. As the story goes, AMC had commissioned a Walter Hill-helmed mini series executive produced by Duvall, and needed to cast five Chinese actresses. The casting call allowed for submissions from non-professionals too, and when Duvall saw Cheng's performance, well, amidst over one hundred other auditions, Cheng really stood out. She was called back and subsequently cast in "Broken Trail," which went on to receive sixteen Emmy nominations and four wins – and, of course, send Cheng down a totally new career path.

Fans who'd grown to love her as a journalist and correspondent were surprised to say the least. As she told the Toronto Sun in a January 2006 interview about "Broken Trail," "I guess a lot of people didn't recognize that I was an actress as well. I've sort of been forced out of the closet with 'Broken Trail.'" But once she was out of the closet, she had no desire to go back in. Since her "Broken Trail" breakout role, Cheng's appeared in a number of popular shows, including "Eureka," "Supernatural," "Arrow," and "The Flash." And now, of course, she's one of the stars of "Marco Polo" – and it's not just her acting skills that have got the world talking.

Yes, it should come as no surprise that we're not the only ones who've taken notice of Olivia's (naked) whirlwind turn as concubine Mei Lin. Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail was quite taken with it too, discussing the logistics of Cheng's clothes-free martial arts moves in a recent interview. “That one scene took two full days to shoot," Cheng told The Globe and Mail. “That’s what I remember. I was exhausted after it, but it looks magnificent. Not thanks to me, alone, but thanks to the world-class stunt trainers I worked with. I trained non-stop and, boy, it ups your game when you’re working with the best.” (Fans may also find themselves exhausted after watching the scene, though for arguably different reasons.)

With "Marco Polo" raising Cheng's name recognition and profile, it seems very likely that we'll be seeing a lot more of Olivia in the near future. Whether we'll continue to see a whole lot of her body remains to be seen – but something tells us that a lady with the ability to do serious stunts without wearing a stitch will be in pretty high demand in the acting world. And hey, if you've got the ability to pull a scene like that off, it'd be an utter crime not to continue to flaunt it for the world at large, right?