Fireside chat with Lucy Liu and Daniel Dae Kim about life, work, family and the future
Imagine having a cup of tea with Lucy Liu. What would you talk about?
In the snowy mountains of Park City, Utah, Cold Tea Collective watched an intimate fireside chat between Lucy Liu and Daniel Dae Kim at the 40th annual Sundance Film Festival.
The event was hosted by Sunrise Collective, a collaborative effort to celebrate and bring together the AANHPI community with partners Gold House, The Asian American Foundation (TAAF) and 3AD, Daniel Dae Kim’s production company.
The room was at maximum capacity with a mostly AANHPI audience. Throughout the three days of programming, Kim led intimate fireside chats with Lucy Liu and Steven Yeun.
Although their careers have followed different paths, all three of these creatives shared about how they’re moving forward from their past successes, challenges, and how family drives them.
Lucy Liu: Household name and enduring the long game
As a child of the late 80s, I grew up watching Lucy Liu on screen through a variety of roles in Ally McBeal, Charlie’s Angels, Shanghai Noon, Kill Bill, and more. While I of course was familiar with her work, I didn’t understand at such a young age how hard she worked to get these roles; I didn’t understand how important it was to see a Chinese American woman on screen in roles that didn’t have to be Asian.
To be the “Watson” to “Sherlock” in Elementary from 2012-2019. To have been the first Asian American person to host SNL at the turn of the new millennium (aka “Y2K” for those of you who are old enough to know what that means). To be a feature story of a major magazine to still be asked about your success only in association with non-Asian people you worked with (in a since-edited story crafted by a seemingly all-white editorial team). To have to make the choice to speak out against and shut down rude comments from co-stars.
I, like many others, have likely taken for granted how hard and how long Lucy Liu worked for us to even be in a place to demand a greater number of and more in-depth and nuanced roles and writing in North American media.
See also: Grace Park on her career and her hopes for the next generation of Asian creatives
Lucy Liu on overcoming the assumption of success
Lucy Liu was at the 40th annual Sundance Film Festival for the screening of supernatural thriller film, Presence by Steven Soderbergh, but reminds us that opportunities aren’t always knocking at her door despite her long career and being a household name across North America.
Throughout her career, Lucy Liu has received 33 nominations and 16 wins for television and film awards, while also being a featured fine artist, and directing. Lucy Liu is truly a role model for achievement in the arts. Yet, despite a long and continually growing body of work, Lucy Liu experiences a challenge that is all too familiar to Asian Americans who have experienced success: the model minority myth.
“Everyone thinks it’s incoming calls, but it’s not,” said Liu.
This thought that people (myself included) have seen Liu succeed and be visible in so many ways over the years, that we assume that life is easy for her now; because she has seen some level of success, that success is perpetual and enduring and that continuous support and hard work is not required; this very way of thinking can act as an erasure of and any challenges she has faced or may face with through assumptions we have of our limited view of her life (or any public figure’s life for that matter).
But Liu is still the hardest worker in the room. Whether she be acting or directing, she shared that she expects herself and others to come to work prepared. This means as an actor, knowing all your lines, as a producer, sticking to or being ahead of schedule, as a director, having your creative vision clearly planned and communicated to those who will execute it for you. Lucy Liu is a professional and she expects all of us to be as well. And why shouldn’t she if she’s had to work so hard for so long?
See also: Yvonne Chapman embodies the iconic Avatar Kyoshi in Avatar: The Last Airbender
Lucy Liu beyond the work
Beyond her work and artistry, the Chinese American director, actress and artist spoke honestly about her most important life’s work to date: her son.
Right from the start of the conversation, Liu shared how learning to raise her young son means she is learning to love parts of herself she had struggled with growing up and even as an adult making her way in the world.
This gutted me; that even Lucy Liu, who arguably has seen success far beyond what most can even imagine, is an imperfect human being who is working on healing herself so she can be there for her son. As the mother of a young son and working in a creative entrepreneurial field myself, I had no idea I could ever feel close to or experience the same thing as Lucy Liu.
This determination to work hard to create success for herself and the next generation led Daniel Dae Kim to ask what is next for Liu. “My best work is still ahead of me. I don’t think it’s finite,” said Liu.
Now in her mid-50s, the New York-based artist continues to work proceed with courage and the understanding that there is a lot she can’t control.
“I think your legacy is what you’re doing and what you’re putting out there. It’s a form of exploration and exploring also involves being brave and seeing beyond, but it also involves fear; really seeing it, understanding it, if it is even possible to understand,” she said.
Whatever is next for Liu, all she knows about the future is that she has to love it. “If I wake up one morning and I don’t love it, I’m not gonna do it.”
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