When it was announced that Jessie Mei Li would star as the leading lady of Netflix’s 2021 Shadow and Bone series, adapted from Leigh Bardugo’s novels, the news was met with a level of hysteria that fans usually reserve for franchises like Harry Potter or Marvel. Now, the actress is set to star as the protagonist of upcoming Hong Kong revenge drama The Season, which premieres next week.
Read on to learn more about Jessie Mei Li, the leading lady in the forthcoming drama series.
Where is Jessie Mei Li from?
Li was born in August 1995 to an English mother and a Hong Kong Chinese father in Brighton, England. Her father’s side of the family is based in Canada. Raised in Redhill, Surrey, Li has spoken openly about struggling with her mixed-race identity, telling SCMP in a 2021 interview how she related to her Shadow and Bone character Alina Starkov, who is also mixed-race.
“I was very Chinese to my school friends but never feeling it,” she explained. “So that was another thing that I felt like I could bring [to the role of Alina] – this shared experience of being in one place, but not really being connected to the other [place]. But everyone else thinks you are.”
How did Jessie Mei Li get into acting?
