17 May 2021
When Leigh Bardugo first came face to face with her characters, she wept. In a video that was uploaded everywhere from YouTube to TikTok, the author stepped on to the Budapest set of Netflix's Shadow and Bone and embraced her heroine, Alina - or rather, the actor Jessie Mei Li in costume. "You guys look amazing," Bardugo repeats in the video, between hugs and tears. "You look so incredible. It's actually eerie."