A King With No Name

Lucy Liu and Idris Elba perform at The Big Chill 2011 [1][2]

“I always admired Wonder Woman and the Incredible Hulk, but I don’t know if I’d be a very convincing Hulk.”

Sometimes you just fall in love with somebody, and you’re really not thinking about what gender or whatever they happen to be. If  I happen to fall in love with a woman, everyone’s going to make a big deal out of it. But if I happen to fall in love with a man, nobody cares.

What was the first thing you guys noticed about each other when you first started working together?

Lucy Liu photographed by Emre Guven

I wish people wouldn’t just see me as the Asian girl who beats everyone up, or the Asian girl with no emotion. People see Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock in a romantic comedy, but not me. You add race to it, and it became, ‘Well she’s too Asian’, or ‘She’s too American’. I kind of got pushed out of both categories. It’s a very strange place to be. You’re not Asian enough and then you’re not American enough.

Lucy Liu at the 2013 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards

“I’m so used to doing roles where people might think, ‘A female? An Asian? An Asian female?’ I say bring it on!”

Happy Birthday, Lucy Liu! (December 2, 1968)