How Tall Is Jessie Mei Li? Know Her Height, Ethnicity, and Parents

Jessie Mei Li is an up-and-rising English actress who has gained fame for her role as Alina Starkov in the popular Netflix series Shadow and Bone. The first season of the show premiered on April 23, 2021, and the second season was released on March 16, 2023.

Besides that, the actress has also appeared in Edgar Wright’s film Last Night in Soho, portraying the role of Lara Chung. And she is set to appear on Pork Scratchings and Havoc.

Her rising fame, therefore, has made many curious to learn about the life of the actress, including her age, birthday, ethnicity, education, and family details. Keep reading to explore everything!

How tall is Jessie Mei Li?

As per multiple reports, Mei Li stands at an average height of 5 feet 3¼ inches or 1.6 meters and weighs around 48 kg or 106 lbs. That said, these reports are yet to be confirmed or corrected by the actress herself.

As for her body measurements, it is 32-24-34 inches or 81-61-86.5 cm. And her bra size is reported to be 32B, and her shoe size is 7 US or 37.5 EU.

Mei Li was born on August 27, 1995, in Brighton, East Sussex, England. Going by her birth date, she is 27 years of age as of this writing. Her birth name is Jessica Mei Li, and her zodiac sign is Virgo.

For her studies, she attended Reigate College after completing her high school education. In addition to that, she studied languages at university but dropped out very soon.

Later, Mei Li enrolled at the National Youth Theatre in 2015 and trained part-time at the Identity School of Acting from 2016 to 2017.

Jessie Mei Li’s parents and siblings

As per reports, Jessie’s father’s name is Art Li, but her mother’s name is unknown. It’s also reported that her parents met each other while both of them were pursuing education at the University of Leeds in the UK.

Apart from that information, there isn’t much known about her father and mother, primarily because Mei Li prefers to stay mum when it comes to her family life. But, she has occasionally shared some tidbits during some of her interviews.

For instance, during her interview with Vanity Fair, the actress discussed about her parents and background. She revealed that her father was born in China but raised in Hong Kong, whereas her mother is English.

Jessie Mei Li alongside her father Art Li (Photo: Instagram)

Jessie continued by saying what that meant for her childhood, stating she spent her childhood in a predominantly white area in the South of England. “Racism towards Asian people in the U.K. generally, I think more so than the States, is so weird and not taken seriously.”

“[People were] outright racist and mocking… You know, the silly accents and the pulling eyes. Even my own dad makes fun of himself for being Asian, because that’s just how things are and how people are socialized,” she added.

Besides her parents, Jessie also has a sibling; a brother named Tom Li, who is a National Health Service (NHS) doctor in the UK. It’s currently unknown if she has other siblings, like another brother or a sister.

Jessie Mei Li embraces mixed ethnicity

As mentioned above, the Locked Up Abroad actress was born to an English mother and a Chinese father. Thus, she belongs to mixed ethnicity; half-Asian and half-Caucasian.

The actress discussed a bit more about her dual identity during her interview with South China Morning Post in April 2021. She said, “[It’s] certainly something I felt growing up.”

“I was very Chinese to my school friends but never feeling it. So that was another thing that I felt like I could bring [to the role], this shared experience of being in one place, but not really being connected to the other [place]. But everyone else thinks you are.”

But as Jessie started to pursue acting as a future profession, her identity began to come into play. She mentioned that she would go on auditions, and sometimes, the role would be of a mixed-race character.

“And sometimes those parts would go to a fully Asian person or a fully white person, whatever, which is fine – diversity and representation, it’s great. But at the same time, I often felt like ‘OK, what am I? Where do I fit in?’” she concluded her statement.

She finds a resemblance between her role in ‘Shadow and Bone’ and her real life

The actress, who belongs to mixed ethnicity in real life, plays a character named Alina Starkov in the series Shadow and Bone, who also happens to have a mixed race.

Talking with Collider magazine in March 2021, Mei Li pointed out the similarities in ethnicity between her real life and on-screen character.

She also added that her character receives various racist comments in the series just because she belonged to a mixed race.

It was good you know there are some scenes in, you know, the first few episodes where you know you sort of see Alina having people make like racist comments to her and stuff.

But in the end, all those experiences make her strong and aspires her to achieve something big in life.

Mei Li said, “It was really interesting they’ve added that and I think it adds a lot more to sort of understand who she is as a person and why she doesn’t feel worthy. Because her journey starts off as ‘I’m no one, you know I’m just an outsider’ to suddenly being like ‘no, this is where I belong.’”