Please Rewind Talent Wall

Lucy Liu

Lucy Liu has built a screen career around precision, wit and an ability to hold her ground in almost any ensemble. Born on December 2, 1968, in Jackson Heights, Queens, she grew up speaking Mandarin at home before beginning to study English at five. She later graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Asian languages and cultures, having taken the lead in a student production of Alice in Wonderland while there. After early stage, television and film work, Liu found a defining television role as Ling Woo on Ally McBeal. She had initially auditioned for a different part, but Ling was created specifically for her and expanded from a temporary appearance into a permanent place in the cast. The performance brought her Primetime Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. Her film career soon demonstrated how effectively she could shift between comedy, action and menace. She appears in Jerry Maguire, one of her earlier big-screen credits represented on Please Rewind, before starring alongside Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz in Charlie's Angels. As Alex Munday, Liu brought cool control and dry humor to the movie's playful action spectacle. In Kill Bill: Volume 1, she played O-Ren Ishii, giving the film one of its most commanding adversaries and winning the MTV Award for Best Movie Villain. Liu's work has never been limited to acting. Her career also includes producing, voice performance and directing, with credits behind the camera on episodes of Elementary, Graceland, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Luke Cage. On Elementary, she played Joan Watson, a fresh interpretation of a role traditionally played by men. She is also a painter, photographer, collage artist and sculptor who has exhibited her work internationally. That range feels consistent with her screen career: Liu has repeatedly resisted being confined to one format, genre or kind of character, moving between mainstream movies, television, theatre, filmmaking and visual art on her own terms.