WOMEN OF SHADOW AND BONE
Jessie Mei Li + Amita Suman In Breakout Roles
Netflix always comes out of the woodwork with some incredible series — and ones that no one sees coming. This time, it is Shadow and Bone, a fantasy series, based on a trilogy of novels by Leigh Bardugo.
The show (and accompanying novels) follows a skilled cartographer named Alina Starkov. One day, she discovers she is a Grisha, someone who can perform “small science.” Her special power? She can produce light like a badass. With it, she can control the darkness, but a group called The Crows sets out to kidnap her and get an enormous reward.
Shadow and Bone features some of the hottest talents to date, specifically with the lead character played by Jessie Mei Li and one of The Crows, Inej Ghafa (aka Wraith), portrayed by Amita Suman. These women are fierce, and we have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot more of them. (I mean, they are gracing the front page of the summer issue of Wonderland.) So let’s get to know them a little bit better.
AMITA SUMAN
Amita Suman is a 24-year-old Nepali actress. She has only done a handful of performances, including a guest role on Doctor Who. But in 2019, she landed a leading role in The CW series The Outpost.
In Shadow and Bone, Suman plays Inej, a killer driven by morality — a combo that doesn’t always work out. When asked what her favorite character moment from the series was, she told Collider: “From a character point of view, probably Inej’s first kill with this hand being forced onto her, and her second kill, which was out of choice, changed who Inej was. This battle of always trying to do good, but creating this unforgivable sin, and how she goes forward from that and how she still chooses to do good from that, was a favorite moment for me.”
Inej is a skilled knifeman, but Suman didn’t get any knife training. Instead, she picked up 14 knives and started doing tricks with them. Now that is impressive. But the series is facing controversy after using a white stunt double for Inej. Hopefully, they remedy that in season 2.
JESSIE MEI LI
Jessie Mei Li is one of the fastest rising actresses of the year — and Shadow and Bone is her first major credit. Before this, she was in the stage production of All About Eve. Now, the gender-nonconforming actress who uses she/they pronouns is about to become a hot commodity.
And she’s doing it just like her character, Alina. She keeps her head down. She is powerful yet doesn’t flaunt it. Li knew her role in the series was part of the larger ensemble, meaning she didn’t try to center it all on herself.
“It can be tempting to overact and chew the scenery a bit in order to give a mind-blowing performance but knowing that there would be a swelling music score, with the edit cutting away to what your character is thinking about, I felt free to often just let Alina feel things in her quiet way and trust the audience would understand what she’s going through, which definitely felt true to the character,” she told Tatler Hong Kong.
Li’s next project is a big one. She will appear in Edgar Wright’s Last Night In Soho with Anya Taylor-Joy and Thomasin McKenzie. It’s one of the most anticipated films of the year, and Li will kill with her performance.
