Li Jun Li on Spider-Noir: ‘He modified the best way I performed Cat Hardy’
Contemporary from the success of Sinners (2025), actor Li Jun Li has traded one acclaimed mission for an additional, entering into the world of Spider-Noir reverse Nicolas Cage. Within the Marvel sequence streaming on Prime Video, she takes on the position of Felicia ‘Cat’ Hardy, a recent interpretation of the long-lasting comic-book character. Talking to mid-day, Li displays on navigating fan expectations, collaborating with Cage, and the artistic freedom she had with shaping a personality untethered from earlier variations.
Excerpts from the interview.
Do you are feeling the stress portraying a personality with a comic-book legacy, given followers’ expectations?
I might if it was an actual portrayal of a comic book character, however Felicia ‘Cat’ Hardy is definitely a unique iteration of the character by Oren Uziel [showrunner]. For probably the most half, Spider-Noir is an interpretation that could be very a lot impressed by the comedian Spider-Man Noir. So I hope that individuals are open to seeing this interpretation.
Li Jun Li as Felicia ‘Cat’ Hardy
When Marvel approached you, did you secretly hope for superpowers or a dressing up?
Positive, who wouldn’t? While you put Marvel within the image, you positively marvel in the event you’re going to have superpowers or in the event you’re going to fly round in a really tight go well with of some kind. However that’s not for me to [decide]. In fact, it’s wishful considering on my half, as a result of who doesn’t wish to be an motion hero?
What stunned you probably the most about working with Nicolas Cage, who is understood for his eccentric strategy to appearing?
I wish to say I used to be very stunned by the velocity at which he works. He’s very fast-paced in our scenes, which I actually beloved. In my thoughts, the best way I rehearsed our materials was very totally different till the day we had our preliminary desk learn, and his interpretation was a lot faster, wittier, and funnier that it not solely stunned me, but it surely impressed me to strategy my character otherwise from how I had initially imagined her. He modified the best way I performed her.
Nicolas Cage in ‘Spider-Noir’
Felicia ‘Cat’ Hardy is usually described as a femme fatale. How did you’re employed with the writers and director to make her extra three-dimensional and produce a singular perspective to the noir setting?
The enjoyable factor about Spider-Noir is that it’s Oren’s personal interpretation impressed by the comedian of the identical title. Our characters are additionally iterations from the comedian. This universe is impartial of all the opposite interpretations. There’s no continuation, nor does it cross over with another components of what we’re used to seeing. That gave me plenty of freedom to create her from the fundamental understanding of Felicia ‘Cat’ Hardy’s previous. We sat down on the very starting to determine her previous, her upbringing, and the place she got here from. Oren additionally mentioned that her character is impressed by the likes of Rita Hayworth, Ida Lupino, and Kim Basinger. We took influences from these femme fatale actors from again within the day and made it Cat Hardy.
On Ryan Coogler’s ‘Sinners’
The movie earned Michael B Jordan the Academy Award for Greatest Actor. “We at all times knew that it was going to be nice as a result of everybody within the solid and crew loves Ryan Coogler, however no, we didn’t know that it was going to be explosive to this magnitude,” says Li Jun Li, who performed Grace in ‘Sinners’. After the movie, she started taking pictures for ‘Spider-Noir’.
