It’s nearing midnight in Tokyo on the release day of “One Piece.” But despite being in the story’s birthplace, star Emily Rudd is feeling an unexpected sense of distance.

“ I sort of feel like I’m just hanging out here in the city as my own person, separate from the show,” she says. “And then there are little moments where I’m like, ‘oh, that’s right — there’s this huge thing that’s happening today.’” 

The show and manga’s vast fanbase, meanwhile, had already marked a different midnight — on the West Coast — when all eight episodes dropped on Netflix. While the “One Piece” cast has been living and talking about the new season nonstop ahead of the premiere, fans are now finally able to join the conversation.

“It’s so cool to see fan thoughts and reviews rolling in,” says Rudd. “Some people are an insane way through the season — it’s only been out for a few hours, and I’m seeing people talking about being halfway through the season or more, and I’m like, ‘how did you guys find the time?’ It’s so exciting that they’re so into it.”

The release of the show’s first season in 2023 coincided with the actors’ strike, leaving the cast unable to promote the series.

“ We weren’t able to do press, we weren’t able to do premieres, we weren’t able to talk about it,” says Rudd. “To have the success that it achieved just on its own, based on the preexisting fan base and their support alone, it gave us such a lift,” she adds.

“ With Season One, just as a baseline, we were creating a show of a live action anime adaptation — largely these adaptations have not been successful. So there was this element of nerves: are people gonna like it?”

Fans ultimately embraced the series, leading to its renewal for a second and third season. The cast is already about halfway through production on Season Three, announced last summer. “ In the same way that Season Two is better than Season One, we also feel that Season Three is even better than Season Two,” says Rudd. “We’re just constantly trying to do right by fans and by [‘One Piece’ creator] Oda-sensei, and keep pushing the world into a bigger and better place.”

Rudd, who was a fan of the original manga before signing onto the production, describes a natural affinity for her orange-haired character Nami, navigator for the show’s central Straw Hat Pirates crew.

“Nami is the first character in my career that I felt like I didn’t really have to do a lot of prep for. I just really understand her,” says Rudd. While her character had an “emotional overhaul” at the end of Season One, the new season offered an opportunity to embrace being a core part of the group.

“I really wanted to lean into her trusting them and relying on them as friends, as her family. Hopefully the fans see her having more fun and finding that joy that maybe she wasn’t able to have Season One,” adds Rudd. “Now she gets to play, and she gets to focus on her adventure and her dream of drawing a map of the world and becoming this incredible navigator. And so you get to see her really revel in that joy.”

While Rudd will remain enmeshed in the sprawling “One Piece” world this spring, later this year she’ll switch gears with the release of her next project “Whalefall,” a film written and directed by longtime friend Brian Duffield. The story, which deals with the loss of a father, came to Rudd shortly after the loss of her own.

“It felt like the universe sort of being like, ‘Hey, I wanna give you something to maybe help move your grief along, or explore your grief in a different way,’” she says. “It was tough, but also really lovely. And I can’t be more grateful. I think it’s a beautiful film, and I’m so excited for people to see it.”

Rudd credits her father with instilling an early love of cinema through iconic sci-fi and fantasy films like “Labyrinth” and “Legend.” “ I just found like this sense of magic in them,” she says — a feeling that was solidified when her parents took her to see a stage production of Dr. Seuss’ “The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins” at the Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis, close to her hometown. 

“ I think the ability to bring people into a different world and into a place where anything is possible really drew me in,” says Rudd. “My mom said that there was one point when we were at the Children’s Theater where I turned to her and said, ‘I wanna be up there one day.’”

That day came a few years later, when Rudd was a high schooler in Wisconsin and began acting onstage with a local theater. She went on to study theater at a community college before making the leap to Los Angeles to pursue acting professionally — planning to give it five years. 

“Maybe a year-and-a-half after I was in L.A., I ended up booking the lead of a pilot,” she says. “And I was like, ‘oh, OK, maybe we can do this,’” she adds. “ Let’s see what we can do.”