Lucy Liu’s filmography may include over 90 titles, but the first time her son watched her act was in Red One, a holiday film based on the kidnapping of Santa Claus. In it, Liu plays Zoe, the intimidating leader of North Pole operatives investigating Santa’s disappearance and working to bring him back in time for Christmas. Naturally, the stakes have never been higher.
“This was the first movie of mine that Rockwell was able to watch that wouldn’t be disturbing in some way,” Liu laughs. “It was a wonderful experience. When children watch movies, you want them to get absorbed in the moment. That’s basically what happened—he was watching the film not remembering that I was in it. Then at one point he goes, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s Mummy!’ He wanted to see it again right away.”
Liu is speaking to me from her bedroom in her New York City home. Her long black hair sweeps gently over her shoulders and her features—arresting as when she first burst into the spotlight in the ’90s—light up brightly when she speaks of her son.
Liu has had a fairly unconventional path to motherhood. In 2015, at the age of 47, she welcomed her son, Rockwell Lloyd Liu, via a gestational surrogate. In the nine years since, she has chosen to raise him with the same level of privacy she has tended towards herself—in a fine balancing act with still letting him be a child.
“He knows what I do for work. As he’s gotten older, he’s become more aware of what my job might mean but I don’t know that he understands it fully,” she muses.
“Children are so pure. His teachers have told me that he talks about me sometimes and feels proud of me. There was a point when I was trying to teach him why privacy was important for our personal safety and I remember telling him not to bring up what I do to his classmates. But then I realised that I was taking these special moments away from him.”
The next time Rockwell told one of his friends at school about Liu’s job, she took it in her stride. “I introduced myself and said hi. I want to let him experience being proud of me as his mum because at some point, I’m sure he’ll be annoyed at me instead,” she says with a grin.
Like many second-generation immigrants, Liu’s tender and empathetic approach to parenting isn’t necessarily a direct reflection of the upbringing she grew up with. Born in Jackson Heights, Queens, to parents who came to New York from China, she recalls the quiet loneliness of her early years.
“We didn’t discuss anything in our family about art or work or even how our days were because they were so busy working and trying to keep their heads above water. That was the norm. It created more of an interior life for myself.”
The career Liu chose to pursue was not one her parents stood behind. “Acting was something I was dead set on and I don’t know that they understood why,” she reflects. “There was a bit of friction there. But I also don’t know if it could have happened any other way. I don’t think that you can erase or rewind their histories and their experiences to create an open canvas in their minds for what was going to happen for me.”
An absence of support from her family paired with an industry with a dismal number of roles for Asian actors led to difficult beginnings marked by rejection, even for an actor armed with a model’s visage, natural poise and an undeniable screen presence.
She describes the painful feeling of being told again and again that there was nothing out there for her. “I struggled against so many different forces, both the lack of belief from my family and the lack of opportunity in the industry. There was so much pressure from every side that it almost created this sort of rocket,” she explains, steepling her hands together. “Ultimately, I think that was what pushed me to succeed.”
For many contemporary viewers, Liu was the first Asian woman they saw as a lead on television. In Charlie’s Angels, she played the sharp and sophisticated Alex Munday—as adept at disarming a bomb as she was at classical ballet. In Kill Bill, she was O-Ren Ishii, the deadly assassin who was turned to a life of killing by childhood trauma.
Two decades on, it might be easy to critique a few of Liu’s biggest breakthrough roles as not having been rich, complex representation for Asian characters in film.
But were it not for Liu having persevered through the limited roles that had been available for Asian actors at the time—making each character she got her own, lending them a richer backstory and offering more nuance than would have been written in—would we have arrived where we are now? Would the Asian actors of today be enjoying their pick of roles? Would we have the privilege of more meaningful conversations about quality representation?
It’s pioneers like Liu who paved the way for a diversity of Asian stories, faces and voices to be recognised on a world stage today. It’s taken years of fighting deep systemic inequality—Liu has had to stand up against, among other things, co-stars hurling insults at her on set—and a lifetime of hard work to redefine Hollywood’s expectations of what an Asian actor can accomplish.
“Acting felt like a real job for me, even when I had nothing going on,” she reminisces. “Regardless of how many rejections I got, I had this fuel to keep going, look in different directions and push forward step by step. Somewhere inside, I knew that there was something more than what was being offered to me.”
I mention to Liu that I first fell in love with her work in Elementary and she perks up with a big smile, as if surprised. In the American adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Liu portrays a gender-bent Joan Watson, a former surgeon hired to aid recovering addict Sherlock in his rehabilitation, but who eventually starts solving crimes with him for the New York Police Department.
Liu brought an incredible complexity to Joan and fleshed her out so fully that it felt like I knew her in real life. Joan, like Liu, had indomitable strength, but also a femininity about her that made her real and complemented her steel. Throughout the course of her three decades in Hollywood, it’s in roles like this that Liu has showcased the full spectrum of her powers as an actor.
She’s most keen to tell me about Rosemead, an upcoming film she both stars in and produces—and one that is close to her heart. The film, a poignant story about the stigmatisation of mental health in the Asian community, has been in the works for over six years.
“Rosemead is not a big-budget film,” she says candidly. “But it’s made with a lot of heart. The most important thing to me is not its commercial popularity. It’s the fact that it exists and that people will have access to it. I hope we’ll be able to watch it as a community and realise how crucial it is to take mental health seriously.”
“I struggled against so many different forces, both the lack of belief from my family and the lack of opportunity in the industry.”
An accomplished artist in addition to her prolific portfolio in acting, directing and producing, it sticks out sorely to me that Liu seems almost reticent to celebrate herself in any way. I point this out to her and she gives me a knowing smile.
“You’re not wrong. I don’t think about myself that much. I have the same work ethic my parents had which I think is great. But it also can be a non-stop train. I think maybe it’s important to stop once in a while and look at where you’ve come from.”
She continues pensively: “It was embedded in me as a child that we were expected to give, which makes someone a good nurturer. But to be a full person you need to both give and receive. I’m learning how to receive. I had to be convinced to put up some awards and certificates in my office because I felt like I still didn’t know how to receive them. It’s something I still have to learn.”
Between working, painting and parenting, Liu is big on surrounding herself with women who inspire her—and their work in multiple forms. “I just finished Barbra Streisand’s autobiography and it was astounding,” she says with her eyes wide. “I found it so fascinating and so honest. The whole reason she wrote it was because she was fed up with the rumours and the false stories about her, and she wanted the truth to be known. She has such an incredible memory and her career is something to behold. It was eye-opening to read about all the pressures that she had to go through, not just as an artist and as a singer, but as a woman.”
“It was embedded in me as a child that we were expected to give, which makes someone a very good nurturer. But to be a full person, you need to both give and receive.”
We bond over a mutual love for Billie Eilish and her latest album, Hit Me Hard and Soft. “Honestly, her words, her feelings,” Liu gushes. “She’s really—I know people say mature beyond her years—but it’s not about maturity. She’s just very deep. I think you have to look at somebody as an artist and a human being. If you take away the age and all of that, you would just see them as they are.”
The sentiment reflects Liu’s unbounded way of thinking. As one of the most famous Asian faces in this world, all she is laser-focused on is her desire to continue learning, working and evolving her craft. Three decades into her prolific Hollywood career, she is far from done.
“I think my best work is ahead of me still,” she agrees. “As time goes on, people are more able to recognise how multifaceted the Asian community is. It was incredibly hard to get financing for Rosemead, but as the industry continues to progress, I hope everyone will be able to see how valuable it is for us to tell stories that are not just big action movies, but that show the different colours of our community and of our families. Those stories need to be told too.”
Photography Victor Demarchelier
Styling Nicola Formichetti
Hair Marco Santini/Walter Schupfer
Make-up Kristofer Buckle/Opus Beauty
Manicure Nori/See Management
Set Designer Nathalie Nostrand
Photographer’s assistants Margaret Gibbons and Ryan Petrus
Digital technician Robert Massman
Stylist’s assistant Brianna Dooley
Set designer’s assistants 11th St Workshop
Executive producer May Lin Le Goff
On-set producer Kevin Isabelle
Production assistant Eli Kennedy
Vogue Singapore’s November ‘Nurture’ issue will be out on newsstands from 11 November and available to preorder online.
