Lucy Alexis Liu is an American actress. She became known for her role in the television series Ally McBeal (1998–2002) and has also appeared in several notable film roles, including Chicago, Kill Bill, and the Charlie's Angels films. She signed on to join the cast of Dirty Sexy Money.
She was born and was raised with her brother, Alex Liu, in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York by Chinese immigrant parents.Liu has said that she grew up in a "diverse" neighborhood.Her family spoke Mandarin at home and she did not learn English until she was five years old.Her father, Tom, was a civil engineer and her mother, Cecilia, a biochemist,but they sacrificed those careers to come to the United States. Liu, at her parents' insistence, devoted her spare time to studying. She attended the Joseph Pulitzer Middle School and she graduated from New York City's prestigious Stuyvesant High School in 1986.She attended New York University for one year, before transferring to the University of Michigan where she joined the Chi Omega sorority and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Asian Languages and Cultures.At one point, Liu worked as a waitress in Michigan.
Liu began acting in 1989, after auditioning for a role in the University of Michigan's production of Alice in Wonderland during her senior year. Liu was cast in the lead role, although she had originally only tried out for a supporting part.Liu had small roles in films and TV (including the "Hell Money" episode of The X-Files and "The March to Freedom" episode on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys) before landing a role on Ally McBeal. Liu originally auditioned for the role of 'Nelle Porter' (played by Portia de Rossi), and the character 'Ling Woo' was later created specifically for her. Liu's part on the series was originally not meant to be regular but the enthusiastic audience response to the actress' 'feisty' Ling Woo secured Liu as a permanent cast member. It also earned her an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy Series.Liu cemented her reputation playing bad girls by portraying "Pearl" the sadistic dominatrix/hitwoman for the Chinese mafia in the film Payback (1999).
Liu next played O-Ren Ishii, one of the major villains in Quentin Tarantino's 2003 film, Kill Bill. She won an MTV Movie Award for "Best Movie Villain" for the part. Subsequently, Liu appeared on several episodes of Joey with Matt LeBlanc, who played her love interest in the Charlie's Angels movies. She also had smaller roles as Kitty Baxter in the film Chicago, and as a psychologist opposite Keira Knightley in the thriller Domino. In 2006, she played leading lady and love interest to Josh Hartnett in the crime thriller Lucky Number Slevin. Other appearances include a cameo on the animated shows Futurama (as herself in the episodes "I Dated a Robot" and "Love and Rocket" and The Simpsons (on the season sixteen episode "Goo Goo Gai Pan"), a guest host on an episode of the NBC sketch show Saturday Night Live in 2000,and the voice of Elise in SSX Tricky.