At 52 years old, Lucy Liu is a woman that still somehow looks exactly the same as she did when she was in her late twenties and early thirties. She’s called one of the hottest Asian women in Hollywood; but dare we say, Asian or not, she’s just absolutely gorgeous no matter what way you look at her under.
Lucy Liu needs little introduction, but for the uninitiated, she’s a wildly successful American actress, producer; and artist who has graced both the big and small screens. She won numerous awards for her work in show business, including two SAG awards; a Critics Choice Award, and a Seoul International Drama Award. She has also honored with nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.
Some of her most notable roles include her turns as Ling Woo on the hit television series Ally McBeal, Alex Munday in two of the Charlie’s Angels films. And more recently as Joan Watson in the dramatic crime series Elementary.
Some of her most significant film roles included appearances in Payback, Chicago, Kill Bill Volume 1, Lucky Number Slevin, and Set It Up. Liu has also worked as a voice artist on offerings like Kung Fu Panda, and all of it’s sequels. As well as in the series Tinker Bell, and Mulan II. She also featured on both the English and Mandarin-dubbed versions of Magic Wonderland as well as The Tale of Princess Kaguya.
But even though Lucy Liu has rightfully earned herself a place among the Hollywood elite; she still remains to be a bit enigmatic. And over the years, she has made some startling revelations that have left us scratching our heads. Join Facts Verse as we take a look at a few of these surprising admissions while covering Lucy Liu’s fascinating life story. And how she came to be the spitfire bombshell that she is today.
Lucy Liu’s Early Life And Rise To Fame
Lucy Liu was born on December 2, 1968, in Jackson Heights, a neighborhood in Queens, New York. When she was attending high school, she adopted the middle name Alexis. Liu was the youngest child of three born to her parents Cecilia. Who was a biochemist, and Tom Liu, a civil engineer and seller of digital clock pens.
Liu’s parents hailed from Beijing and Shanghai, China, respectively, and immigrated to Taiwan before meeting in New York City. Liu has one older brother named John, as well as an older sister named Jenny. While she and her siblings were growing up; Liu’s parents worked many different jobs to give them the best life that they could.
Liu grew up in a fairly diverse neighborhood. At the age of five, she learned to speak English; although the language that she spoke in her family home was Mandarin. One of her hobbies as a child was studying martial arts.
After graduating from Stuyvesant High School, Liu enrolled at New York University before transferring to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan; where she earned her bachelor’s degree in Asian Languages and cultures. While she attended UM, she also managed to receive some training in dance, theater, voice, and the fine arts.
Lucy Liu’s Senior College Year
During her senior year in college, Liu auditioned for a minor role in a production of Alice in Wonderland but instead given the lead role. After getting a dose of encouragement from that experience, she decided to immerse herself in the world of professional acting.
After relocating to Los Angeles, she began to audition for as many roles as she could; while working in the foodservice industry to keep the lights on. Eventually, she managed to land a role as a waitress on Beverly Hills 90210 in 1990. She followed that relatively small part up with appearances in shows like NYPD, ER, and The X-Files. In 1996, she got given a more substantial role as one of Rhea Perlman’s students in the sitcom Pearl.
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Lucy Liu’s Break Into The World Of Cinema And Continued Success
Liu scored her first big-screen role portraying an ex-girlfriend in the 1996 hit film Jerry Maguire. She then given several supporting roles in a series of small films before landing her first big break on the 1997 sitcom Ally McBeal as the series regular Ling Woo.
That role got the boost that Liu needed in her career. And she subsequently cast as a dominatrix in the Mel Gibson action film Payback, which hit theaters in 1999. That same year, she played hitchhiker in the boxing flick Play It to the Bone. The following year, she starred in more substantial roles in films like Shanghai Noon. And most notably in Charlie’s Angels, where she played one-third of the titular crime-fighting trio.
In 2003, Liu appeared as O-Ren Ishii in Quentin Tarantino’s first installment of the Kill Bill series. She then appeared in several episodes of the Friends spin-off sitcom Joey alongside Matt LeBlanc; who appeared in the Charlie’s Angels films as her love interest.
She followed those roles up with appearances in films like Chicago, Domino, and Lucky Number Slevin.
Lucy Liu’s Film Appearance
In 2007, Liu appeared in Code Name: The Cleaner, Watching the Detectives, and Rise: Blood Hunter before making her debut as a producer while also starring in a remake of Charlie Chan. Lue made her Broadway debut in the play God of Carnage in 2010; in which she played the character Annette alongside actors Jeff Daniels, Dylan Baker, and Janet McTeer.
She got the cast as Joan Watson in the American Sherlock Holmes adaptation last 2012, Elementary. While the role of Watson has typically played by men, Liu garnered quite a bit of praise for her portrayal of the role. She stuck with the show until it came to a close in 2019. And along the way, she got honored with several awards for her work; including three nominations for the People’s Choice Awards for Favorite TV Crime Drama Actress.
In 2021, Liu cast as the villain Kalypso in the forthcoming superhero movie Shazam! Fury of the Gods.
Lucy Liu’s Startling Supernatural Admission
In 1999, while promoting Charlie’s Angels, Liu revealed to US Weekly that she once had an experience while trying to take a nap on a futon where some kind of spirit entity came down and made love to her. She described the experience as being ‘sheer bliss’, and added that she felt everything. After reaching climax, Liu stated that the ghostly emanation simply floated away.
But as outlandish, unbelievable, and provocative as it might sound; Liu isn’t the only celeb who claims to have had intimate relations with a ghost. The bizarre phenomenon even normalized in the film Ghost. Where in one scene where actress Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze hook up in her dreams after Swayze’s untimely death. These sort of spooky encounters actually even have their own scientific name, Spectrophilia, and have documented for centuries.
Anna Nicole Smith likewise once told a magazine that a ghost would sometimes crawl up her leg and have sex with her. She even revealed that these encounters would happen every night. Dan Aykroyd once told Esquire that he used to snuggle up with a male ghost; and pop star Ke$ha claimed that her hit song Supernatural inspired by getting down and dirty with a specter.
Lucy Liu’s 1999 Interview
In that same 1999 interview where Lucy Liu admitted to her ghostly love-making; she stated that her ghastly suitor now watches over her; so at least whoever or whatever she had sexy time with at least had the courtesy to stick around afterward.
One can only wonder if Lucy Liu’s intimate episode with a spirit entity was somehow tied to her spirituality which she says has been a hugely influential part of her life story. Over the years, Liu has studied various world religions, including Buddhism, Kabbalah, Taoism as well as traditional Chinese Philosophy. It’s no telling what really happened on that futon over two decades ago, but all we can say is that ghost, or whatever it was sure lucked out because many among the living would do just about anything to get a chance to spend a romantic evening with Liu.
Lucy Liu Has Always Felt Like A Black Sheep In Hollywood
Even though she is a massive star with quite the success story, Liu has recently opened up in interviews about the trouble she faced early on in her career due to racism in Hollywood. Talking about her experience with Charlie’s Angels and her struggle to find work in show business up to that point, Liu said that she faced a lot of difficulties trying to score auditions, whereas her white counterparts seemed to have no trouble in the same department. Whenever she would land an audition, she would often find herself in a room full of people that looked nothing like her.
After becoming somewhat of a black sheep in Tinseltown, she realized that she really had nothing to lose because even when she landed an audition, a woman of her race wasn’t necessarily what producers and talent agents were looking for. So instead of being discouraged by this troubling reality, she instead leaned into it and gave her auditions everything she had, knowing that she had nothing to lose.
Lucy Liu in Charlie’s Angels Role
After landing that career-defining role in Charlie’s Angels, Liu finally found herself on the map. But when the film was still in pre-production and casting choices were still being made, another actress who was considered for the role named Thandiwe Newton, who is Zimbabwean, pulled out due to what she described as the racist and objectifying vision that director Joseph McGinty Nichol and Sony Pictures head Amy Pascal had for the film.
Newton had some pretty damning things to say about Nichol and Pascal, who essentially just wanted her to dial up her sexuality in order to be ‘believable’. But what’s disturbing about this isn’t necessarily Newton and Liu’s first-hand experiences dealing with racism and sexism – it’s the fact that women of color have historically been objectified and forced to rely upon stereotypes to appeal to the western audience.
Amy Pascal has since issued a statement claiming to have no recollection of the events that Newton and Liu described while claiming to take thier words seriously.
Are you a big Lucy Liu Fan? If so, what is your favorite role that she has done throughout her storied career? Let us know in the comments section below.
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