WUNDERKIND

For Jessie Mei Li, life has taken a course she never thought it would. “I didn’t think acting would ever be something I could make into a career. I went to university thinking I’d maybe become a teacher or work for the UN,” she says with a laugh over Zoom one afternoon, holed up in a flat in London where she has spent periods of lockdown throughout the past year. “After I left university, I started attending a couple of acting classes in the evening. It was just something I did for the sheer joy of it.”

Dressed in a smart blazer with her hair pulled back into a low bun, the thing that sticks out most about Li through the flattening sphere of a virtual call is the sheer force of her smile. She is free with her grins, eyes turning into pretty crescents each time either of us makes a joke. We bond immediately