“I’ve got a lot of characters in me”: Jessie Mei Li on HAVOC and working with Tom Hardy

Netflix thought of picking a fantasy TV show character and putting her in an action thriller! Jessie Mei Li plays Ellie in the recently released HAVOC, where Tom Hardy takes the lead as a corrupt cop in a high-octane thriller brought to us by The Raid director Gareth Evans. Despite featuring actors like Hardy and Forest Whitaker, the film met with mixed reception and is still to make it to the top 10 on Netflix as of this writing .

Recently, Jessie Mei Li sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss the movie, where she answered a lot of questions. When asked if she wanted to do more action thrillers, she affirmed that she loved all that stuff. Moreover, she added,

"Even if something doesn’t turn out to be good, I’m there for the experience. I’m there to help the director make their vision, and that’s what makes me feel fulfilled as an actor. I just want to be able to play lots of different characters as well. I think I wouldn’t ever want to be pigeonholed. And I feel like I’ve got a lot of characters in me that need to come out."

Before this, Jessie Mei Li has worked on Netflix's fantasy show Shadow and Bone, a psychological horror film, Last Night in Soho (2021), and more.

Jessie Mei Li had a lovely experience filming HAVOC with Tom Hardy

Jessie Mei Li joined the film's cast in 2021. (Image via Netflix)

Tom Hardy has made his name not just as an actor but as a kind being too. She said something that adds to him being kind. She told The Hollywood Reporter the following when asked about her experience with him on the set:

"I had a really bad habit of saying, “Bang!” They were like, “Jessie, stop, please.” But I really had to get used to the noise. Obviously you get ear protection and stuff, but I would flinch. That’s the first time I met Tom. He was straight in it, giving advice, making sure that everything I did looked really like I’d done it before. He was lovely to work with."

While that might have helped her, Tom's blunt style doesn't really go well with his co-actors sometimes. The actor says he just wants to help; well, intentions matter. In one interview with Entertainment Weekly, where he was discussing The Revenant, he tells how he took the physical route to keep things light in that serious environment. Both he and the film's director ended up in snow.

The actress drew inspiration from Tom Hardy on the set

This is the first time Jessie Mei Li is acting in an action thriller. (Image via Netflix)

It's not just Tom Hardy's advice that helped Jessie Mei Li get through with the character, but she also copied him while filming, as revealed by herself when she appeared in another interview with Cosmopolitan UK's Grace Henry. She said,

"I kind of copied his walk a little bit in a couple of scenes."

She had to do it as the character was a hard nut to crack, and it was also the first time she had portrayed such a role. It looks like that helped her a lot, as Ellie's character in the film didn't feel like she was stepping into these shoes for the first time.

Jessie Mei Li is next preparing for a TV series called The Season, which is currently in pre-production. Not much is known about it but it's not going to be an action thriller like this. However, this experience has likely given her enough encouragement for similar future projects.