Li Jun Li on learning a Southern Accent and portraying a 1930s Chinese-American in Sinners; “Grace was definitely a challenge; I was equally excited and terrified”

By Ryan Lobo -

April 9, 2025 - 1:42 PM IST

In Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, actress Li Jun Li steps into the shoes of Grace, a Chinese American grocer living in 1930s Clarksdale, Mississippi. Alongside her husband Bo Chow, played by Yao, Grace serves a tightly knit yet racially divided community, offering a rare glimpse into a little-known chapter of American history. The film paints a compelling portrait of the Chinese-American community that existed between Black and white populations in the Jim Crow South. With Sinners, Li Jun Li delivers a layered performance rooted in deep cultural research and transformative craft.

Li Jun Li on learning a Southern Accent and portraying a 1930s Chinese-American in Sinners; “Grace was definitely a challenge; I was equally excited and terrified”

Li Jun on finding Grace:

“Grace and her husband, Bo Chow, are grocery owners in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in the 1930s, during the time where Chinese Americans lived between very segregated whites and Blacks and they owned grocery stores to serve both communities,” Li Jun Li explains. Despite the complexity of the role, her journey into the project started with minimal context.

“I barely knew anything when I started the audition process. I was filming another project. I was presented with some sides and a code name, and the only thing I knew about the project was that it was a Ryan Coogler movie. What really piqued my interest was that the character required a very thick Southern accent,” she says.

The challenge thrilled her: “I hadn’t done a Southern accent since acting school in college. And during that time, I thought to myself, ‘I’m not really sure why I’m learning this, because I don’t ever see myself using this skill.’ [laughs] So I was equally as excited as I was terrified.”

She threw herself into the process: “I spent the next two days, my weekend off, watching YouTube videos, both on interviews of the Chinese-American community in Delta, Mississippi, as well as dialect videos in trying to perfect my accent as best as I could before the read. Grace was definitely a challenge, and I really love playing different roles whenever I have the opportunity to.”

Digging into History:

Research was key to grounding Grace in reality. “There’s a documentary on the Chinese of Delta Mississippi from the 1930s made by a filmmaker named Dolly Li,” she says. “That documentary is something that Yao and I both watched repeatedly, repetitively, and also took our accent inspirations from. Obviously, there was a lot of reading involved, but to me this was very new. I was not aware that there was a small Chinese community in that area at the time.”

The historical context was eye-opening, “The number was about 750 Chinese Americans, compared to about 150,000 Black people and 350,000 white people. And per Frida Kwan, one of the women that was being interviewed in that documentary, that they all stayed in their lanes and everybody was fine until they crossed over.”

Li Jun Li was particularly struck by how culturally immersed the Chinese community had become: “One of the things that I found so special about the Chinese community then was how embedded they were culturally, and how the only thing about them that was still Chinese was just their physical appearance—their way of life, their religious practices, the way they dressed, it was all extremely Westernized.”

She adds, “One of the points Ruth made was about how they blended into the culture without standing out, even with their makeup and hair. Everything was very much from the time and there was nothing else about them that was Chinese, if that makes any sense. One of the interesting things that I also learned from the documentary was that they would have little parties within their own small community, and they would always cook Southern-style Chinese food.”

Filming in IMAX: Immersed in the Past

As a period piece shot in IMAX, Sinners was both grand and intimate in scope. “Ryan warned us about the sound the cameras make,” Li recalls. “I specifically remember, because my character’s entrance scene—where she steps from her grocery store across the street to Bo’s grocery store—was shot on IMAX. The sound actually helped me click right into the world, because there is nothing more magical about being in a film in the ‘30s, shooting film in a camera making so much noise. [laughs] So it really helped me, if anything.”

With Sinners, Li Jun Li not only showcases her range but brings a rarely represented American experience to the screen—blending history, culture, and performance into something unforgettable.