“They specifically want someone who looks like me. That’s cool. I never thought that would be a thing,' JessieMeiLi told W. Read on, here:
When the opportunity to play Alina Starkov, the powerful hero of the wildly popular Netflix seriescame across the actress Jessie Mei Li’s desk, she was floored by the prescience of its arrival. It was 2019, and Li had just started out—the U.K. native participated in a few stage plays and was going on auditions regularly. But thescript, which was adapted from the YA fantasy novel of the same name by Leigh Bardugo, stood out from the rest.
To say that being cast in the series changed her life feels like an understatement. “I remember other friends who wanted to be actors saying, ‘You’re probably gonna find it difficult. You’re never gonna be in a period drama’—I just thought that was reality, because I’m not full white,” Li, who is of Hong Kong Chinese and English descent, recalls. “A friend of mine who is white said, ‘You could never play Elizabeth Bennett.’ And it broke my heart because I was like, ‘Ah, yeah, you’re right.
Another crucial moment that took place within the past three years was Li’s ADHD diagnosis. Suddenly, Li’s mind’s tendency to wander and her difficulties making plans for the future came into focus and made sense.what on earth is going on ?” she says. “I just feel like I’ve got about a hundred different personalities and I can barely keep track of what’s going on, half the time; I am pretty chaotic as a human being. But actually, I’ve grown to love myself a lot more since the ADHD diagnosis. There are lots of things that are brilliant about ADHD, and I think it makes me a better actress.
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