Lucy Liu thinks she would’ve had “so many more opportunities” if she looked Caucasian.
The 56-year-old actress is widely regarded as a trailblazer for Asian American representation in Hollywood – but Lucy believes she might’ve been even more successful if she looked Caucasian.
Asked to recall her frame of mind after making Kill Bill: Volume 1, the 2003 martial arts movie, Lucy told The Hollywood Reporter: “It was such a time of understanding what it meant to be in a commercial film.
“Charlie’s Angels had already opened and it was received with such rigour, and there was just a lot of confetti. Ally McBeal was also received well. I’d never tracked what I did, but I was so present then — and I was so naive in a very positive way. I wasn’t thinking about numbers. I wasn’t thinking about stereotypes. I wasn’t thinking about slurs. I was really present in those characters and able to channel what I really believed they could be.
“As time has gone on, there’s not a clean slate. If I did another Samurai movie, they would then reference that; but back then, there was not enough to reference. Their ingredients were all new. Like, it was the first time that a cronut had been created.
“There was this wonderful ability to be free in your own work. Now, you’re continually being tethered to something that you’ve already done. You can’t get away from something even though you’ve created something new — and that’s part of life. I haven’t gone out and changed my face; there’s only so much I can do. I cannot turn myself into somebody who looks Caucasian, but if I could, I would’ve had so many more opportunities.”
Despite this, Lucy is comfortable with her own career journey.
She said: “I don’t want to be mean with the way that I look — I come from somewhere and I’m not going to erase myself to benefit someone else’s review.”
Lucy previously admitted that she was often “the only diverse person in the room” during the early years of her career.
The Hollywood star told the Guardian newspaper: “I would think often, even if I didn’t get the job, they would understand that I had something different that could be used for something else down the line. I don’t know, I was so excited and it’s not different from how I feel now, because I have such a passion for what I do.
“I think if I didn’t feel this way, I would stop doing it, because it is difficult, no matter what stage you’re at in your career.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source uk.movies.yahoo.com ’
