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Born on December 2, 1968 in Queens, New York to Chinese immigrants, Lucy Alexis Liu has always had deep interest with her cultural heritage, but tends to move away from “strictly Asian” characters. She graduated from The Stuyvesant High School in 1986 and continued college in New York University. However, she transferred to University of Michigan after a year because the “NYU atmosphere” discouraged her. She graduated with a degree in Chinese Language and Culture, balancing school activities involving dance, acting, voice and fine acts.

When attending in University of Michigan, Lucy Liu auditioned in theater productions, such as Alice in Wonderland. Upon winning the lead role, she discovered a new talent and passion. She decided to take professional acting by moving to Los Angeles. Although she started to balance casting calls and her food service jobs, she eventually got lucky and appeared as a waitress on the popular 1990 TV series, “Beverly Hills, 90210”. Her short appearance in 90210 led to more TV gigs in shows like, NYPD Blue, ER, The X Files and Pearl.

In 1996, Lucy Liu played an ex-girlfriend in the successful movie, “Jerry Maguire”. Then, she featured in a series of supporting roles in various films before she received her big break in 1997 when she appeared as a guest star in “Ally McBeal”. Although Lucy Liu auditioned for the role of Nelle Porter, writer-producer David Kelley was impressed with her talent that he wrote a part for her in the next episode. Fans loved the character Ling Woo, which led to Liu being a regular cast member of Ally McBeal.

Lucy Liu’s role in Ally McBeal gave way to numerous big-screen roles, including the 1999 movies “Payback” and “Play It to the Bone”, Jackie Chan’s 2000 film “Shanghai Noon” and her biggest role ever as one of the crime-fighting sexy trio in the 2000 action movie, “Charlie’s Angels” and “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” in 2003. In 2003, Lucy Liu also played a villain opposite Uma Thurman in Kill Bill: Vol. 1.

Off-screen, Lucy Liu maintains her fit body by practicing martial arts, particularly Kali-Eskrima-Silat or knife & stick fighting. She also loves to ride horses, ski and rock climb when she has the chance. Liu also plays the accordion and explores her artistic side by displaying a few multimedia art pieces in 1993 at the Cast Iron Gallery in New York.

Lucy Liu is a UNICEF goodwill Ambassador and has been a public figure for two awareness campaigns – when she visited areas in Pakistan devastated by the 2005 earthquake and when she toured the Congo in 2007.