Lucy Liu says Hollywood racism stalled her career for decades

Lucy Liu says long-standing racial bias in Hollywood created what she describes as a “strange lull” in her career after her early success in films and television.

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly discussing her new dramatic feature “Rosemead,” the veteran actress said she was repeatedly funneled into limited roles and faced systemic barriers that slowed her trajectory for years.

Liu said that even after appearing in major projects such as “Charlie’s Angels,” “Kill Bill” and “Ally McBeal,” the roles offered to her were often what she called “side salad roles that were not necessarily roles that would challenge me or tap into my potential.” She described the difficulty of getting “Rosemead” made, noting that it took 16 investors to finance the production and that distributors questioned how the film would benefit them. She called the project her first serious dramatic lead in more than thirty years of working in the industry.

Liu also pointed to what she viewed as unequal scrutiny of Asian performers, recalling criticism she received for playing an assassin in 2003’s “Kill Bill.” “Why isn’t anyone else perpetuating the stereotype when we are all assassins?” she said, noting that her non-Asian co-stars did not face comparable accusations. She added that if she “looked Caucasian,” she believes she would have had more opportunities, underscoring how racial expectations shaped her career experience.