Li Jun Li

Dance as an Iron Discipline

Li Jun Li was born in Shanghai, but her story took shape between Bogotá and New York. Before stepping onto a television set, she trained at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. There she learned that technique is the only valid safety net for an actor.

In 2008, she made her Broadway debut in the revival of South Pacific. That musical theater discipline is what helped her endure years of supporting roles in series such as Damages and Blue Bloods.

That was just the beginning.

She spent much of her early career jumping between roles with barely any credited names. But in 2015, her career took off in a different way with the television adaptation of Minority Report. It was a short-lived project that taught her the rhythms of major science fiction productions.

She soon joined Quantico during its second season, which aired in 2016. There she played Iris Chang and sustained long-running storylines without losing her composure on camera.

The Weight of the Gaze on Screen

The industry often typecasts Asian actors in flat roles. But Li Jun Li sidestepped that trend through a very selective choice of projects. In 2019, he accepted the role of Jenny Wah in Wu Assassins. It was a Netflix production in which he performed intense physical action scenes, mostly without stunt doubles.

That same year, he appeared in Why Women Kill. In this series by Marc Cherry, he worked alongside Lucy Liu and showed a much sharper side for biting comedy.

But television was still her refuge.

In 2021, she joined the cast of Sex/Life. The show drew massive audiences during its initial run (more than 67 million households in its first four weeks). The series' success allowed her to choose more dramatic projects from casting offices.

In 2022, she got the call from Damien Chazelle to join the cast of Babylon. That shoot marked a complete change of scale in her career.

The Resurrection of Anna May Wong

Playing Lady Fay Zhu in Babylon required extensive research into silent cinema. The character was directly inspired by Anna May Wong, and Li Jun Li had to learn complex choreography and cabaret-style musical numbers. The director wanted almost mathematical precision in every movement.

The shoot for her main musical number lasted three full days on a closed set.

Critics praised her presence over names with more weight on the international poster. In 2023, the film received multiple technical nominations, and Li's performance was singled out as one of the film's highlights for her ability to convey the melancholy of an era coming to an end.

In 2024, Death and Other Details premiered on Hulu. In this project, she played Anna Collier under the direction of Marc Webb in the pilot episode. The series was shot mainly on sets recreating a luxury cruise ship and had ten episodes in its first season.

The contract for Li Jun Li stipulated twelve-hour shooting days during filming at the Vancouver studios.