MASALAThe Artist’s Way
As the curtain cloaking the stage lifts and the
sound of chopping helicopter blades breaks the
silence of the theater, lights shine upon a horde of
scantily clad Vietnamese prostitutes. They jeer,
laugh and thrust their hips at Kim, the virginal new
girl, in a dizzying whirlwind of sexual depravity.
In the audience, a wide-eyed, 9-year-old Li Jun Li
watches the graphic opening scene of Miss Saigon,
traumatized. She swears she will never become
an actress.
But only 10 years later, Li landed her “first real
job for a 19-year-old” in that very same musical,
which catapulted her career. A dozen theater
roles later, she eventually found her way to tele-
vision, playing recurring roles like social worker
Rose Cooper in The Exorcist and cocky FBI agent
Iris Chang in Quantico. In August, the 35-year-old
will appear on Netflix’s martial arts drama Wu
Assassins, as confident restaurateur Jenny Wah.
But Li dutifully refrains from describing how
the culinary world and martial arts will blend in
the show because “you’ll enjoy it more if I don’t
say anything.”
Li is excited about the diversity of both the
cast and crew on the show: of the 10 members on
the creative team, six are Chinese, and four are
women. Just like her character, she’s also Chinese
American and relates to Wah’s struggle between
Western and Eastern culture. When Li was 6, she
left her birthplace of Shanghai, China, to follow
her dad to Bogotá, Colombia, for his job. “I had
to learn Spanish, and as soon as I became fluent,
I had to move again to New York,” she says. “It’s
confusing because you come [to new places] with
the Chinese traditions you’re used to.”
Moving so much as a kid was exhausting, but
in New York City, Li developed a deep love for
the arts. There, she discovered her first passion:
dance. When she wanted to take her career to the
next level, she received pushback from her father,
a painter. He wanted her to pursue visual arts.
“When it was time to audition for high school [at
Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music &
Art and Performing Arts], I auditioned for both
dance and art, and I ended up getting into both,”
Li says. “The biggest argument between my father
and I was actually not about me becoming any of
your stereotypical careers, like a doctor or a law-
yer. But he really wanted me to go to LaGuardia
as an art major, which I did not want. So, I ended
up dancing half a day every day for four years. It
was amazing.”
She stumbled upon a new love when she audi-
tioned for LaGuardia’s annual open-major musicaltheater production. Those first roles inspired her
to pursue an acting career, which she steamrolled
toward without looking back. She took classes at
Purchase College’s Conservatory of Theatre Arts,
attended open calls, tended bar and paid for New
York rent by working as a real estate agent at the
same time. “It was not as stressful and awful as
it sounds today,” she says brightly. “I accepted
that that’s just what you do when you’re 19 years
old. I learned so much, and I don’t regret that for
one second.”
In addition to Wu Assassins, Li will be breaking
into film soon. In the upcoming indie comedy
Modern Persuasion, she will play Rebecca Duva-
lier, a “self-righteous, arrogant, hot-and-cold,
can-turn-on-a-dime” public relations employee.
“I actually love doing comedy. I don’t get that
opportunity very often; I’m mostly seen for
drama. I don’t know if it’s because of my face—I
look very serious,” Li says, laughing. “But I really
find so much fulfillment when I get the opportu-
nity to do comedy.” There are still some places
she’s too shy to go—she is not touching stand-up
any time soon. “That’s brave,” she says, in a fear-
ful tone. But just as Li swore she would never be
an actress, there’s always potential for a change
of heart.TEXT BY KAITLIN YU
When she was 9 years old, Li Jun Li swore she would never
work as an actress. Now, she’s in Netflix’s Wu Assassins.
CM