Lucy Liu

The Glass Ceiling of Queens

Lucy Liu earned one dollar for her first professional role. It was in a stage production of Alice in Wonderland at the University of Michigan. That ridiculous amount gave no hint that she would become the highest-paid Asian American actress on American television.

She was born in Queens and grew up speaking Mandarin at home. Her parents were engineers and chemists in China, but in New York they survived on precarious jobs so their children could study. She decided she wanted to act when she saw that no one on screen looked like her family.

In 1991, she landed a tiny role in the series Beverly Hills, 90210. She was only a waitress with a couple of lines.

For years, she took supporting roles that exploited her look for exotic-woman parts. In 1998, her luck changed thanks to Ling Woo in Ally McBeal. The character was supposed to last a few episodes, but audiences became obsessed with her cutting coolness.

That performance earned her an Emmy nomination in 1999 and broke the mold of the submissive Asian woman in Western television.

And the gamble paid off.

The Price of Kicks in Hollywood

In the year 2000, the Charlie's Angels phenomenon arrived. Lucy Liu earned one million dollars, while her co-stars Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore each took home twelve million. She accepted the difference because she knew she needed the project to move up in the industry.

During filming, she had a public clash with Bill Murray. The actor stopped a scene to tell her she couldn't act, and she didn't stay quiet. That incident nearly cost her career in an era when strong-willed women were harshly punished.

In 2003, Quentin Tarantino called her to play O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill: Vol. 1. It was her most physical and violent role. She trained in martial arts and katana handling for months (sometimes ten hours a day) so the choreography would look real.

But film was starting to feel too small for her creative ambitions.

The dangerous woman stereotype haunted her for a decade.

Behind and in front of the monitor

In 2012, she took on the challenge of playing Joan Watson in the series Elementary. Many criticized the decision to change the gender of Sherlock Holmes's sidekick before seeing the first episode. The series ran for seven seasons and 154 episodes.

She discovered she was more interested in storytelling than makeup. In 2014, she directed her first television episode and since then has directed episodes for projects such as Luke Cage and Why Women Kill.

Few people know that Lucy Liu is also a visual artist under the name Yu Ling. She has been showing her paintings and collages in galleries in London and New York for years. She uses art to explore her Chinese identity away from the spotlight of the Los Angeles press.

In 2023, she joined the superhero genre with Shazam! Fury of the Gods, playing the villain Kalypso. The shoot demanded long days in heavy armor and complex digital effects on a set in Atlanta.

The film's production had a budget of $125 million.