Lucy Liu

Lucy Alexis Liu is an American actress, producer, and artist born on December 2, 1968. Regarded as a Hollywood icon and a trailblazer for Asian American representation in Hollywood, she has received two Critics' Choice Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2019, Liu became the second Chinese American woman to be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Liu was born in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, New York City, and is the youngest of three children. Her mother worked as a biochemist and her father was a civil engineer who also sold digital clock pens. Her parents originally came from Beijing and Shanghai and immigrated to Taiwan before meeting in New York. Liu grew up speaking Mandarin at home and began studying English at age five. She attended Joseph Pulitzer Middle School and Stuyvesant High School before entering New York University, later transferring to the University of Michigan, where she graduated in 1990 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Asian languages and cultures.

Liu became interested in acting as a child and was discovered by an agent on the subway at age 19. During her senior year of college, she auditioned for the University of Michigan's production of Alice in Wonderland and was cast in the lead. She made her New York stage debut in Fairy Bones in 1992 and appeared in early screen projects including Rhythm of Destiny, L.A. Law, Pearl, and The X-Files. Her breakthrough came when she was cast as Ling Woo in the Fox comedy-drama series Ally McBeal, a role created specifically for her that earned her nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Following her television success, Liu transitioned into major film roles. She starred in the action comedy film Charlie's Angels in 2000 and its 2003 sequel Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, and portrayed O-Ren Ishii in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Volume 2, winning an MTV Award for Best Movie Villain. Her other film credits during this period include Payback, Shanghai Noon, Chicago, Lucky Number Slevin, Domino, Watching the Detectives, and 3 Needles.

From 2012 to 2019, Liu starred as Dr. Joan Watson in the CBS crime drama series Elementary, earning three consecutive People's Choice Award nominations and directing six episodes. She also won a Critics' Choice Television Award for her guest role as Jessica Tang on Southland, starred in Why Women Kill, and directed episodes of Graceland, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Luke Cage. Additionally, Liu has extensive voice acting credits, including Master Viper in the Kung Fu Panda franchise, Silvermist in the Tinker Bell series, and roles in Maya & Miguel, Mulan II, and Strange World.

Liu's subsequent screen projects include Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Steven Soderbergh's Presence, Red One, and Rosemead, which she also produced and starred in as a mother diagnosed with a terminal illness. Her additional screen work includes appearances in The Devil Wears Prada 2, as well as production roles on projects such as Superfakes and Reset.

Beyond acting, Liu is an accomplished visual artist working in painting, photography, and mixed media. She has presented her artwork under her Chinese name Yu Ling and held gallery shows in Munich, New York, and the National Museum of Singapore. She has been involved in philanthropic efforts as an ambassador for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, a spokeswoman for the Human Rights Campaign, and a member of the Committee of 100. In her personal life, Liu has been a vegetarian since childhood and raises her son, Rockwell, born in 2015 via surrogate, as a single parent.