Star RISING
Meet Kunjue Li, the breakout star of this year’s most-buzzed-about release, The Laundromat
(out now). Director Steven Soderbergh’s latest film stars screen legends Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas and Sharon Stone, and does for the Panama Papers scandal what The Big Short did for the financial crisis of 2OO7-2OO8.
Next, the actor takes the lead in Netflix’s Tigertail (out 2O2O) a moving family tale spanning from 195Os Taiwan to presentday New York, directed by Master of None
co-creator Alan Yang. ‘Alan wrote the film six years ago, but it wasn’t the right time for an all East-Asian cast,’ says Li. ‘But there’s been a dramatic increase in representation on screen.’ Born and raised in the mountains of Sichuan in southwest China, Li’s parents disapproved of a career in acting and pushed her to study International Relations at the London School of Economics before she could move to acting. ‘They are proud now, but still harsh critics,’ she says. ‘My mum watched the Oscars last year and rang me saying, “So many people are getting awards, why don’t you have one?”’
Starting out in TV with bit parts in
Ripper Street and Peaky Blinders, she moved to Los Angeles last year to get more work,
‘In England, I was lucky if I was auditioning maybe four times a year. In LA, I get an audition at least twice a month.’ She cites
Viola Davis as her motivation. ‘I play her
2O17 Golden Globes speech on repeat.
Her words provide the ultimate inspiration and she consistently supports the need for more authentic roles for women of colour.’ Li hopes her work can do the same: ‘I love the idea of giving a voice to the those who never got a chance to be heard.’