“I Need to Own My Worth”

Lucy Liu is not in Los Angeles much these days, but she’s trying to take advantage of a small window to promote Rosemead, her long-gestating passion project which hits a few theaters here on Dec. 5. The movie, which premiered in Tribeca before receiving honors at festivals in the likes of Locarno, Belfast, and Miami, has resulted in some of the best reviews in Liu’s career, backed by descriptors like “career-redefining” and “towering.” (THR’s review says she “transformed,” while praising the film around her as “intimate and forceful.”) But it has not been smooth sailing: The movie took years to make, due to difficulties in financing, and it struggled to find a distributor despite the strong reviews (Vertical Entertainment ultimately acquired domestic rights).

“Even if a movie like Anora was made for $6 million or whatever it was, you can put $90 million into (the marketing and awards campaign) — and we literally don’t have 90 cents,” Liu says with a smidge of winking hyperbole, leaning on a couch in a West Hollywood hotel room. “It’s kind of heartbreaking to talk about something really important when you don’t have much.”

You sense Liu is talking about both the project’s contents and what they represent in her own life as an actor. The groundbreaking star of such smash action franchises as Charlie’s Angels and Kill Bill is movingly stripped down in Rosemead as Irene, a Chinese immigrant and widow battling a terminal illness while raising her son, Joe, who is schizophrenic. The film is based on a true story and cuts to the heart of experiences of alienation and mental health in immigrant communities. Liu found the project cathartic — if also a potent reminder of the boxes the industry has kept her in for decades.

Liu says she hasn’t had a starring vehicle in a film like this over her entire career. She has stayed busy — in addition to those iconic film series, she’s done award-winning work on TV series including Ally McBeal, Southland and Elementary — and she has not given up. But a few years ago, she had a wakeup call about her place in Hollywood and how she’s been treated over the years. Rosemead may mark a new beginning, with major projects starring Liu now in development. But as she shares over our frank, emotional conversation, it’s been forged out of some tough times.

It’s exciting to see you in a role like this. I know you fought for it — this was not an easy movie to get made. 

We got it made after many, many years — 16 different investors. “Well, here’s 10 cents and here’s another $20,” hoping that maybe it has a legacy after. But even after we made the movie, it was like, “Does anyone want to distribute it?” Everyone’s like, “How is it going to fuel us? What’s our kickback?” It does come down to finances. And I started doing indies. I was lucky enough to fall into the commercial world — but those are kind of more side-salad roles. They’re not necessarily roles that would challenge me or tap into my potential.

This is your first producing credit on a narrative feature. Clearly you learned some hard lessons in trying to get this movie made and sell it. How did you find the experience overall?

Grueling. Seeing the sausage get made and then seeing all of the shenanigans behind the scenes, you think you’ve traversed such a long distance, but really you’ve just moved the needle a little bit. It’s disappointing. It can be disheartening, but when you have so much persistence and fight still left in you, you can keep understanding it because I’ve seen the other side of it. I know what the machine is. I know what a proper press junket is. I know why they bring certain people onto a project because they can foresee, “Okay, this person has this many followers, so let’s bring them in.”

There’s an art and there’s a science to it, and I don’t know if it’s a good thing to know that or not, but as a producer you see the minutiae of it and you really understand how impossible it is to get anything made. Even Cillian Murphy’s movies recently are just phenomenal, but it was incredibly hard to find Small Things Like These on streaming. I literally typed the entire movie into my search and it still didn’t pop up! What else can I do? I finally was able to watch it — and also watch Steve, both phenomenal — and yet: What’s going on?

But you’re an actor who’s been in this industry for a long time, who’s been in big movies — I’d think at least some people would be excited by the prospect of you getting to do something totally different, right? 

But it’s a complicated world. Does it have, what’s the shiniest thing right now? I don’t know that. They said the movie would not have been made if it weren’t for me. But also at the same time, when I’m not doing what I’ve been tailor made for — action or other things that they’re used to seeing me do — maybe it’s not as shiny. If it was this big action and had all the heroics, it would be more —

Marketable, maybe.

Yes, you can say that. It’s like a commodity.

I was trying to think of another role where you played a character speaking this much Mandarin.

This would be the only one, yeah. I’ve done it in, like, guest roles, but not to this degree. 

What was that like? Even just emotionally, it must be a whole different way in.

Yeah. It’s funny because for O-Ren (in the Kill Bill movies), I learned Japanese for that, and there was also a way in — it changed the way that I held myself. Going back to this language that I grew up with and spoke only when I was younger, it brought me back to a memory of a smaller person — a smaller feeling that I had. There was an access to a vulnerability that has been locked away for many, many years. The language greets a softer side of this woman. Her language crossover to English also allowed for more vulnerability. She was expressing herself but wasn’t truly being heard.

Do you feel like a different kind of actor coming out of an experience like that?

It’s really cathartic. It’s a touchstone because I feel like it’s always been in there. I just haven’t had any opportunities to tap into it. I mean, to think that I’ve been in this business for over 30 years and now have the first leading role like this is kind of crazy. I did not know that until somebody pointed it out on the team. I’ve never really looked at myself in that way. I was just like, “I’m working. I’m really enjoying this role. I can bring something to this character no matter how big or small it is, I can relate.” But yeah, “I didn’t think about it until somebody mentioned it and I was like, that’s sad.”

What does that say, to you?

I think it says a lot about diversity, or what you said earlier about marketability — what’s going to sell and what they see as selling. We’re products, like what they believe is going to sell — it’s a science. People are crunching numbers, but also maybe we’re small potatoes, being the underdog always, or being underestimated. I don’t work from a place of deficit, but I see where they will place me. I’m coming from a place of strength, but I also know where they’re trying to put me.

It sounds like you recognized Rosemead as a real opportunity. Did that change your process at all? It had to have taken a lot out of you. 

I didn’t leave anything on the table. It wasn’t saving anything for the next episode or something else. There was no turning back. There was a responsibility to this woman in a way that she did not receive when she was alive. That was to humanize her. The community erased her, and she wanted to be erased herself, in her own words. She was going through such struggles, she didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. 

Many times in my life — and even in my family’s life — people wanted us to be erased. I witnessed it with my parents when I was a child: Why did they want us to go back to our own country, or why were we called Jap or Chink or any other slurs? To them it was nothing. But to us, it was like a slash, losing a limb. Every time you hear a slur and that kind of condescension, it has an effect on you as a person from another country and not having a sense of self because of it. Finding myself in this industry is kind of remarkable because I could have not had a voice, and I didn’t have a voice when I was younger. I was incredibly shy and never spoke up and did not want to be seen. My form of protest is working.

I do think of you as someone who, over the years, has become pretty outspoken in this industry. Do you not agree?

I don’t know. I don’t know what I’ve said.

I remember a few years ago there was an essay in Teen Vogue about O-Ren in Kill Bill, and you pushed back on that.

That’s right, yes, I did. Somebody sent me the article, originally. I was being called out for whatever reason, perpetuating a “Dragon Lady” stereotype. Why isn’t anyone else perpetuating the stereotype when we’re all assassins? I was being depicted as the one who was perpetuating it for the entire country. I was responsible for it. But Vivica Fox or Daryl Hannah or Uma Thurman were not. I don’t even know if they have a word in English for American people. Well, I’m American, but I look like this, so I cannot get away from it. 

If anything, they were the ones perpetuating that, bringing that term back into the zeitgeist in a moment of absolute terror for Asians with “Kung Flu,” the “China Virus,” the violence and the deaths and the killings in Atlanta. So to me, it was politicized. I don’t think that that character had anything to do with being political. She was a woman who was traumatized by the death of her parents. She had a history.

It’s an example of the level of scrutiny that goes into all of the work that you do and the images that you’ve presented, in a wide array of roles. So then you have to become somebody who knows how to speak on how people react — or push back on it. 

And by the way, you can take those roles and you can prescribe them to any of those stereotypes that are laid out for us. Other characters that are strong, that are not Asian, are not Dragon ladies. They are strong lawyers or politicians or mothers or doctors. But if I’m a doctor, then I’m going to be categorized as a super smart, nerdy Asian woman. I can’t get away from it because it’s trailing me because they want to label me.

I’m curious how you reflect on Kill Bill. There’s a big re-release coming up next month. 

It’s exciting and it’s surprising. It’s a monument, in a way, of time for myself. I remember it so well — it’s like a milestone. And it’s going to be opening the same day as Rosemead, which is a very different indie movie. It’s a little bit of my own Barbenheimer moment, but very different. I don’t even know how to label that. (Laughs.) O-Ren was somebody who was also cast out, and she was able to say, “Don’t label me. I will decapitate you.” 23 years later, it’s no different. 

When you say you remember that time so vividly, what comes to mind?

It was such a time of understanding what it meant to be in a commercial film. Charlie’s Angels had already opened and it was received with such rigor, and there was just a lot of confetti. Ally McBeal was also received well. I’d never tracked what I did, but I was so present then — and I was so naive in a very positive way. I wasn’t thinking about numbers. I wasn’t thinking about stereotypes. I wasn’t thinking about slurs. I was really present in those characters and able to channel what I really believed they could be.

As time has gone on, there’s not a clean slate. If I did another Samurai movie, they would then reference that; but back then, there was not enough to reference. Their ingredients were all new. Like, it was the first time that a cronut had been created. (Laughs) There was this wonderful ability to be free in your own work. Now, you’re continually being tethered to something that you’ve already done. You can’t get away from something even though you’ve created something new — and that’s part of life. I haven’t gone out and changed my face; there’s only so much I can do. I cannot turn myself into somebody who looks Caucasian, but if I could, I would’ve had so many more opportunities.

There’s a lot to explore. There are also some limitations. But those limitations I want to own and I want to be proud of. I don’t want to be mean with the way that I look — I come from somewhere and I’m not going to erase myself to benefit someone else’s review.

After Kill Bill: Volume Two came out, what did the landscape of work look like for you? The Charlie’s Angels movies had just ended, Ally McBeal had just ended — so if there were a true lead role to come your way in a movie, it would be right around then. You had just been front-and-center in a bunch of major projects.

I remember being like, “Why isn’t there more happening?” It wasn’t like there were incoming calls. I’m not sure what was going on, but I remember thinking that it was such a strange lull. It’s like I almost blacked out. I never really stopped working. I was just on this treadmill. I did some smaller movies that I loved that didn’t really gain much traction, like Watching the Detectives with Cillian. But a lot of the same was coming down the track and I was like, “I don’t want to do that.” 

A lot of movies that came my way, I preferred the male role and not the female role. Or Lucky Number Slevin, an independent film that Paul McGuigan directed, (my role) was originally written for somebody that was Caucasian. The description literally was like, “a perky, bouncy Lindsey knocks on the door.” Know what I mean? It was written there. For a lot of characters that I played like that, I asked them to keep the first and the last names to show that it was written not for somebody who was Asian. Like Alex Munday (in Charlie’s Angels). They wanted to change the last names of the people. Once I signed on, I said, “No, you should leave it.”

Why was that important to you?

Because to me, that’s a breakthrough. That’s evidence that this was not written for me or somebody who had a last name like mine. It was written for somebody else, and yet I can still be that person, and you should not be able to detect a difference. It should not change the way that you receive this piece.

So you describe this post-Kill Bill period as being on a kind of treadmill of work. The way you’re talking, this clearly changed at some point. 

I don’t think things really stopped until the pandemic — and once everyone stopped, it was really the first time to regain part of myself. I never looked at my history of work. I started to look at myself and where I was in my life and I recognized some of the things that I didn’t look at from my childhood and how I got to where I was. It was more of a personal reflection. I started to realize I need to own my worth,

These projects coming down the pike started to seem like a little bit more of an afterthought. I didn’t want to participate in anything where I felt like they weren’t even taking me seriously. How am I being given these offers that are less than when I started in this business? It was a sign of disrespect to me, and I didn’t really want that. I didn’t want to acquiesce to that.

It does feel like you’re getting attached to a lot of really cool projects right now, for lack of a better word. You’re leading the Peacock series Superfakes, which the Safdies and A24 are backing, and also Lulu Wang’s new film with Charles Melton, which the Obamas are backing. Do you feel something shifting for you? 

I don’t look at myself and analyze it. I think that something is changing, and I don’t know if it’s the perception or I don’t know what it is. I want to work with people that I think are obviously very talented, but more so that are collaborative and kind, because the work is not just the work, it’s also my whole life. The commitment that you make when you work on something is you are erasing that time from your personal life. I don’t want to sacrifice any more time with insanity. There’s enough insanity just from the job itself, from the work and from the commitment to the job, before you even work during the work. I don’t want to feed into the entitlement of what this industry creates. 

You’re also producing these projects. So that is definitely a shift, where you’re more involved from the ground up.

And you have to fight for that. You have to really give yourself over to it. It’s not a vanity credit, and most people just think we put our name on it, we don’t show up. I’m like, I’m telling you that that’s not the case. Not only do you push to get the credit, but you also have to break that wall down. I don’t think I have enough tools. (Laughs.)

Did you know Lulu Wang before? How does that kind of project come about?

I just got a call saying that Lulu wanted to meet with me, and then we sat down and hung out and talked, and then we went out to dinner after that with her and her husband (Barry Jenkins). It was so lovely, and I mean, what a dynamic duo they are. I had no idea — I never really look people up when I meet them, or even after I meet them. They both come from that indie world as well, so there is a creative consciousness that we all feel together. I know that the initiation of this project comes from a very pure creative place. That is enough for me to sign on and be excited about.

Have you met Charles Melton yet?

I have not. She actually reached out to him — he’s a neighbor of hers — and he’s like, “I don’t even need to read it if you and Lucy Liu are on it.” I was like, “Wow, good for you.” I love it. I love that he’s all in.

I saw you were at the Academy Gala with Demi Moore last month. There are some parallels to how you’re navigating this moment right now, getting recognition for your work for the first time in a long while, with what she experienced with The Substance last year. Did you follow that?  

Oh, yes. She’s somebody who’s so able to look into herself in a really deep internal way that is aspirational. I think it’s very hard to do that kind of work, and she does it because she wants to understand. There’s an honesty to her that is the greatest form of protection. I say that because when you’re not honest with yourself or with others, that’s when people can hurt you. I’ve watched her work from the very beginning, and then to know her more and to read her memoir, the fact that she is where she is and how she is is really remarkable.

Knowing that her journey has been complicated and storied, I understand that. I understood that from the beginning, when I was going in and auditioning once every three or four months because there was not much out there. She’s somebody who hasn’t even really tapped into her potential, as far as I’m concerned, because she’s got so much more to offer.

You and the Charlie’s company have done a lot together, publicly, over the last few years. There seems to be a real joy in that — like with Demi at the Academy Gala, for instance.

I don’t know that many people would be like, “Let’s go to the Gala together.” Most people just want to have the spotlight on themselves, and it’s a lonely place to be, standing there. You don’t know what’s going on. I’m still shy and I’m still really awkward with these social situations. There’s a sense of loneliness to it as well — it’s so hard to connect when you’re in a situation where you’re sitting at a table and it’s quite formal, and then you get separated after that. So Demi was like, let’s just go together. That generosity of spirit goes such a long way. Having gone in together on the red carpet, it helped me to readjust. 

I haven’t been in L.A. in such a long time. I haven’t lived here in many, many, many years. I just feel sort of out of the loop, and I think I always will feel that way, but I embrace that, and I also know to pay it forward. 

Is this your first time doing the awards season rounds?

I think so. I mean, I don’t know if we’re there. It took us a while to find distribution that we are getting our legs up, and if people receive it in that way, I would be so thrilled to just have people watch the movie. The heartbreak to me would be that it just got locked in a vault.

As in, you type in the name of the movie and you can’t find it.

(Laughs.) Or you type the entire names in for the director and the star, and you’re like, “Where is it?!” This movie is going to run out of budget soon. It plays in L.A. for a week and one week in New York, and that’s about as much funding as we have. When I was younger, I could have really used this movie, and instead I saw a Calgon ad. That was my relationship to being able to see myself on camera or relate to anyone. We’ve obviously come far from there, but I struggled quite a bit when I was younger. We are the underdog because we are limited in our resources, but I feel incredibly proud of the movie, and I want it to be available for people to just be able to access it. 

An experience like this prods a lot of reflection. When you get a landmark role like this, does it take you back to the beginning of your career at all? Something maybe you wish you knew then? 

I don’t think that I could have done the things that I did if I knew all of this. I would’ve come from a place of, probably, rage. It’s better to come from a place of excitement. And honestly, gratitude — just because there’s so much broken in the system, it doesn’t have to change your belief in the magic of filmmaking. To me, it was a form of escape and a form of understanding. That momentum that I had as a 19- or 20-year-old when I started, not knowing everything else was a beautiful thing. That’s the combustion of a starting out, the accelerator is really the beauty of it. You don’t want it to be tainted too soon.

I’ll never lose that magic. I never retired. I never strayed from this business because I love it so much. People talk about how people go in a different direction, and I think that that’s fine. I don’t ever judge people for that. You were talking about Charlie’s: Cameron (Diaz) retired for a while, and her ability to light up a room is like nobody else’s. Drew (Barrymore) has gone down this new path to connect with people — she’s always been a people person, and now she has a talk show that’s incredibly successful. But I’ve just stayed on this path. This is the path that I choose.

Rosemead hits select theaters on December 5.