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Thursday, September 19, 2002
Liu kicks down door to fame
Screen star breaks through barriers with diverse roles
NEW YORK (KRT) - It’s hard not to
notice when Lucy Liu makes an entrance.
Doing promotion on a rainy Labor Day for
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever - which will be in
theaters Friday - the raven-haired beauty
enters a luxe midtown hotel room with no
fewer than five assistants at her heels.
At the photo shoot that follows, Liu
doesn't hesitate to give directions to the
person clicking the shutter. When asked to
pose in an awkward way, she quickly
declines. Then, as the session winds down,
Liu issues a command: “Can everybody
leave the room while 1 do the interview?”
The 34-year-old actress exudes so much
confidence that she has a far greater presence
than her lithe 5-foot-1 frame would suggest.
“Not once,” she said, “have I ever felt 1
wasn’t in control of my own destiny.”
Liu became famous in 1998 when she
joined “Ally McBeal” as fiery, summons
spouting Ling Woo, and then made the leap
to film with a scene-stealing role as a domi-
natrix in Payback with Mel Gibson (1999),
followed by roles as a rebellious princess
(2000’s Shanghai Noon with Jackie Chan)
and, with Drew Barrymore and Cameron
Diaz, one of the high-kicking Charlie's
Angels (also 2000).
In Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, Liu hits the
female lead as a covert-operations agent
opposite Antonio Banderas. Liu trained in
martial arts and high-powered firearms to
prepare for the part of Sever. “She gets
betrayed by the man she works for and goes
out for revenge,” Liu said.
Ballistic's director, Kaos, found Liu to be
an assertive collaborator. “Because she has
strong opinions, she doesn't want to be
excluded from the creative process,” he said.
“It challenges you as a director,” said the
29-year-old filmmaker from Thailand, whose
full name is Wych Kaosayananda. “With
Lucy, you can’t pretend to have the answers,
because she will break you down.”
Liu says she gets her fighting spirit from
her parents, Chinese immigrants Tom, an
entrepreneur, and Cecilia, a biochemist - and
from growing up in the melting pot of New
York City, where she was bom.
“I think anyone who is first-generation is
going to have an adjustment period,” she said
about her childhood. “If your parents are not
from America, you're basically living a dif
ferent culture, with a different set of rules
at home.”
Liu attended IS 145 in Jackson Heights,
and graduated from Stuyvesant High School
in 1986. She went to NYU for a year before
transferring to the University of Michigan,
where she studied Chinese language and cul
ture (she’s fluent in Mandarin).
Her long road to movie stardom began in
1989, when she auditioned for a bit part in the
college production of “Alice in Wonderland”
- and snagged the lead. After graduating in
1990, Liu moved to Los Angeles and spent
the next few years doing walk-on parts on
“Beverly Hills, 90210,” “NYPD Blue.” “ER"
and “The X Files” before landing “Ally
McBeal.”
With the success of Charlie's Angels,
which made $125 million in North America,
Liu’s options have opened up. In December
2000, she became the first Asian-American
woman to be a guest host on “Saturday Night
Live.” She is currently commuting between
the Los Angeles sets of two movies that will
arrive in theaters next year: Charlie's Angels
2: Halo, and Quentin Tarantino’s highly
anticipated martial-arts epic Kill Bill.
“Working with Quentin is inspiring
because he’s addicted to film,” Liu said. “His
blood is in the words and directing." She
spent five weeks filming in Beijing earlier
this summer and learned Japanese to play O-
Ren Ishi, a Yakuza boss, in Bill.
Meanwhile, Liu is developing her own
revival of the Charlie Chan film franchise, a
series from the 1930s that originally starred
Warner Oland. a Swede, as a know-it-all
Chinese detective.
This time around, she’ll be Charlie Chan.
“We said, let’s turn it on its head, let's
make (Charlie) a woman,” she said. “And
make it with someone who’s actually Asian,
how about that?”
While Liu is probably the highest profile
Asian-American actor now working - Jackie
Chan and Chow Yun-Fat are from Asia - she
engenders mixed feelings in the Asian-
American community.
“I'm just glad she’s not this wilting lotus
flower, she’s a kick-a— Asian girl, but we
need to go beyond that,” NaRhee Ahn, 31, a
columnist for FunFactor, an Asian-American
arts newsletter based in New York, said. “I
definitely think there are women in the Asian
Photo Courtesy of KRT
community who resent her because she
chooses tough, bitchy women roles.”
To Liu’s critics, characters like Ling Woo
perpetuate the “dragon lady” stereotype - a
conniving Oriental seductress.
“What stereotype?” asks Liu, railing
against her detractors. “Fm playing a person
with a personality, do you know what I
mean? She’s got flavor, she's got color. If I’m
too smart. I’m playing the geek. If I’m too
sassy and sexy, I’m playing the dragon lady.
It becomes very limiting.”
Despite her growing film success and big
ger paychecks ($4 million for Charlie's
Angels 2), Liu is concerned that, as an Asian-
American actor in mostly-white Hollywood,
she'll be typecast in chop-schlocky “tough-
babe” roles.
“I do worry that it’s going to be limiting
for me. They still want me to do a lot of mar
tial arts,” Liu says. “That’s not to say we
won't do Charlie's Angels 5. because it’s so
much fun.
“You have to make the right decisions and
you have to be satisfied with your work and
respect the things that you do.”
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PEOPLE IN THE NEWS
Singers Stefani and
Rossdale tie the knot
NEW YORK (AP) - No Doubt
singer Gwen Stefani, dressed in
a white-and-pink silk faille gown
by John Galliano for Christian
Dior, married Gavin Rossdale of
Bush in London last weekend.
"She looked very beautiful,"
Galliano told Us magazine for its
Sept. 30 issue. The wedding
took place Saturday at St. Paul's
church, with friends and family
attending the hour-long cere
mony, the magazine said.
Telephone calls to Stefani's
publicist in Los Angeles were
not returned Tuesday.
Rossdale, 34, proposed to
Stefani, 32, on New Year's Day.
Stefani became a staple in the
music world with No Doubt's
1995 "Tragic Kingdom" album.
British-born Rossdale made his
American debut with Bush's
1994 album "Sixteen Stone."
It was the first marriage for
both singers.
James Brown faces
daughter's lawsuit
ATLANTA (AP) - James
Brown's daughters have filed a
federal lawsuit against the
Godfather of Soul, seeking more
than Si million in back royalties
and damages for 25 songs they
say they co-wrote.
Deanna Brown Thomas, who
works at a South Carolina radio
station, and Dr. Yamma Brown
Lumar, a Texas physician, say
Brown has withheld royalties
because of a family grudge.
Even though they were chil
dren when the songs were writ
ten — 3 and 6 when "Get Up
Offa That Thing" was a hit in
1976 — Brown's daughters
helped write them, said their
attorney, Gregory Reed.
"This is a sad scenario," Reed
said. "They didn't want to han
dle it this way."
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