Lucy Liu Revisits Her Life in Looks—From Charlie’s Angels to Her Red Carpet Wins

Hi Vogue, this is Lucy Liu

and this is my Life In Looks.

[upbeat music]

All right, let s see what we got here.

Oh, okay.

This character is Ling Woo from Ally McBeal

who became quite popular for her,

I guess honesty, her bluntness.

So this is late nineties

and it was like the very narrow eyebrow

and the very like, you know, tight-fitting clothes,

very body-conscious

and the clothes were sort of representing her personality.

And she was just sort of all out there.

I was brought on to Ally McBeal as a guest star

and I did not know anything about the show really

cause I was so focused on theater.

I was about to take a project

that was a lead role in the, you know,

theater production for regional theater no less.

And that was gonna go for three months.

And I was like, I m gonna take that job.

And my manager was like, You will not be taking that job.

You ll be taking this eight-day job as a guest star.

And I was like, Why would I do that

when I can work for three months for $10

as opposed to work for eight days for more?

So stupid.

I still work with Maryellen Mulcahy today,

it s been over 30 years

and she kind of helped me see myself

as more of a lead than as someone in the background.

Okay, this dress was actually designed

and created by Joseph Porro,

who I worked with on Shanghai Noon.

I was able to do that movie with Jackie Chan,

who I idolized,

and I was shooting in Calgary, Canada

and I was nominated for an Emmy.

I remember, you know, hearing the news when I was there.

And then Joseph said

that he would design the dress for me,

which I was blown away by

because this guy has so much artistry,

so much history.

So I was thrilled

and I didn t even know what that meant

because I didn t even know what designers did.

I grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens

and we had like a Rainbow down the street in this mini mall.

I mean, and that was elegance to me.

I invited my mother as my plus one to this, you know,

this Emmy Award, whatever it was,

I just didn t comprehend how big it was.

And also this award for Best Supporting Actress

was the first award up.

So I sat down and then the whole thing was over already

and I was like, What happened?

The show won for Ally McBeal

and it was just such a huge movement forward

because comedy was seen differently.

Comedy was always like 30 minutes,

half hour laugh track.

And so this was a longer dedicated time

that was sort of dramedy

and it was a big deal

because there was also a dancing baby

and you know, now you can do absolutely everything.

But back then the idea of a green screen

and a dancing baby

and working with something that wasn t there was huge.

So it was a moment in time that I will never forget.

It was really the beginning of my career.

This is pre-having a stylist.

I mean it s kind of outrageous

that I was running around with practically nothing on.

I was just living my best life, guys.

This is a bag that I think either a friend of mine sewed

or I bought off of like Canal Street.

I m not even posing.

It s sort of like I m so, like I m slumping.

It s kind of great.

I love this moment because it s so real.

Clearly.

What is it for?

Oh, Play It to the Bone.

Okay, this is kind of an offshoot of my own character

that was kind of like out there.

But really my personality was like,

This is kind of cool, I m just gonna put it on.

This is from Shanghai Noon.

I was playing Princess Pei Pei.

I met Joseph Porro here who designed my Emmy dress

and you can see the detail

and the team that he worked with.

It was really a magnificent time for me to grow myself

cause I had not really left the country that much.

When I got there,

I asked Jackie Chan if he would teach me some stunts.

I was like, Come on guys, teach me some stuff.

And his whole team was there, you know, he s like,

No, no, no, you don t get to do anything.

I don t want you to get hurt.

And they basically tried to teach me to juggle.

I was like,

Why am I here with your entire stunt team

and you re trying to teach me to juggle?

By the way, unsuccessful,

so clearly not coordinated enough

and maybe that was their, you know,

test to see if I could actually handle knives

and other things.

This character actually launched me into Kill Bill.

When I got the call from Quentin Tarantino, he said,

I wrote this role for you, I m really excited,

I really want you to read the script when it s ready.

And he said, Your role is Princess Pei Pei.

Like, it really moved me

and it really connected me with you

and that s why I wrote this role.

So O-Ren came from, in a strange way,

from Princess Pei Pei.

So thank you Princess.

This is a Versace dress

and it was my first time to the Oscars.

Cameron, Drew, and I were presenting Best Costume

and this dress was beaded

and it was also about a thousand pounds.

So when I got home I had like an indent in my shoulder

from the weight of this dress.

So this dress was really the first designer

Versace Donatella that I wore.

It basically captures everything in this moment.

I think I look slightly stunned [laughs].

Well, okay guys,

this is a character Alex Munday from Charlie s Angels.

We are undercover

and we re trying to get Cameron s character

to break into this, you know, sealed room.

Very kind of payback, dominatrix-y,

but also feminine and tough and funny.

Most importantly funny.

For this, we did the preparation that we could.

We trained five days a week, eight hours a day,

no big deal.

I remember being there the first day for training

and thinking, I got this, I m kicking high,

I m kicking sideways.

I mean I am so flexible.

And then the next day I walked in

and I didn t really walk.

I was like basically on my knees crawling in

because you know, it s not the first day that it s painful,

it s the second day and that a third day was even worse.

And you know what,

before this I didn t even have a gym membership.

So the irony is that, you know,

people started putting me in all these action movies,

but I had never even picked up a barbell.

There are so many looks from that movie.

There s that race car track move.

I mean it was like Americana with the stars

and the, you know, red, white and blue.

And I think there was something very elite about Alex,

you know, that was not originally written for someone Asian.

So I wanted them to keep the last name Munday

to show that this was not something that was supposed to be.

But here it is and we re gonna serve it.

Thankfully this says Golden Globes Awards.

This is a Versace dress.

It s got the beading, it s got the feathers.

That is my manager, Maryellen Mulcahy,

who I ve been working with from the beginning.

She believed in me before I believed in me

because my parents were like, What?

My mother is still, you know, she gets it

and she appreciates it.

And I know that now

because she gave me a like an old school luggage.

I mean I m talking about like 1960s

and it was filled with clippings

that her friends had written in Chinese

and sent to me or from Chinese newspapers.

And I realized that she had been saving

all of these articles about me.

So I think she gets it now.

Come on guys, Sex and the City.

I was playing myself

and when they asked me to play me, I was like,

What does that mean? What do people think of me?

This whole thing actually revolved

around the Hermes bag.

In the rehearsal, I was using this fake bag.

And then when we actually shot,

like I m telling you like security people

that were dressed in suits, like men in black,

I mean they showed up,

they had a safe where this Hermes bag was

that they took out and used.

I was like, What is the big deal with this bag? You know?

And they had white gloves on the whole nine yards

And you know what? It s a big deal.

Anyway, she got one or you know,

Samantha got one and used her name, which is hilarious.

Her being me, which is weird.

I don t know, I m really confused.

O-Ren Ishii, this moment in time is forever for me.

This kimono was not just an ordinary kimono,

they created this kimono for me.

Kumiko Ogawa.

She was the one who designed this kimono

and this kimono almost wasn t a kimono.

Originally Quentin wanted me

to wear something very different

and he wanted me to wear this kind of communist gray

with the frogs and crochets like Converse.

When I read the script,

which was so beautifully written,

I mean Quentin is really such an artist and a visionary.

I saw something very different

and I just saw there was an elegance about her

and a femininity that I wanted to retain.

I said, Why don t we take what you are known for,

like your Pulp Fiction , the black ties

and the white shirts and the black suits,

like the simplicity of what he did.

Why don t we take that and make that into something?

So for the first scene that you see O-Ren in,

she s in a black kimono

with a white underneath the black kimono.

And so that was representing basically Pulp Fiction.

And I said for the snow garden scene,

Why don t we reverse it

and make it white on the outside

and black on the inside?

He was willing to say yes

and it changed the direction

of how O-Ren was able to be received.

This look and the sword and everything,

I actually donated it to the Academy.

So if you wanna visit it, you can visit it at the Academy.

This beautiful look Ungaro, it was at the Met Ball

and here s Giambattista Valli

who actually was the designer at the time.

The story behind this dress is that before I got in it,

there was an issue with the zipper.

So he actually had to sew me into this dress

and then we had to cut the dress off

in order for me to get out of it.

I mean it s being held up by like this tiny little moment

here on my neck.

If that thing split,

it would ve been like, Hello everyone.

So this was my first time at the Met Gala

and then in 2007 I went with Zac Posen

and he created this stunning, vibrant purple gown

that had a train.

And I remember wearing this tiara also

and I remember being there

and it was just such a huge fashion moment.

And Zac was trying to like pull the dress, you know,

the train out so that he really could see

how beautiful it was.

This is a Giambattista Valli dress.

This is when he was Giambattista Valli

and only Giambattista Valli.

He wasn t designing for anyone else.

It was a big deal.

I still have this dress actually.

You re gonna see it again.

I m gonna wear it again.

You guys, watch out.

Because it is so elegant

and it s classic and it is beautiful.

And this is where Kung Fu Panda

and I was voicing Viper and this was in London

and I just remember it was just a huge opening.

My son has seen this movie,

but when he did see it,

like he didn t really connect the dots necessarily,

you know, but he does go around saying, you know,

My mom was Viper in Kung Fu Panda .

Guys, all I can say is

Carolina Herrera put pockets in this dress.

Thank you, Carolina.

Because I never know what to do with my hands

and I think I, there s that weird pose

where you put your hands on your thing

and it s just so awkward.

It was the Golden Globes

and I have no idea what I was doing there,

but I was there with this dress.

And that s the memory that I have [laughs].

[gasps] This is Vivienne Westwood

and I m here at the Tonys.

Vivienne Westwood was a designer

that I just admired so much.

I thought that her work was always sort of idiosyncratic

because it wasn t about symmetry.

I remember really trying to match this hair with the dress

and I wanted like a faux hawk.

This is my idea of a faux hawk, guys.

So it was like kind of a female tuxedo dress, you know,

that was the kind of the idea behind it.

I received the star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

I was a second Asian American woman in 60 years

to receive it.

This is the only thing that I brought my son to

because I didn t wanna expose him to all the craziness.

My mother was there too.

So it was a really special moment.

My dear friends Demi Moore and Rhea Perlman came

and spoke for me

and to think that I am there

after the journey that I ve been on,

on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,

that was to me the moment that I think that I felt like

I ve actually accomplished something.

The eighties is the best!

This is from Why Women Kill.

Janie Bryant was the costume designer who is just brilliant.

All of the things that she pulled were vintage,

so very layered, very shoulder padded and very itchy.

Thanks dust mites.

You know, Simone, there was just no controlling her.

There was no such thing as over-accessorizing with her.

And I think her personality was very much like that.

The nails, you know,

I had never really worked with nails before

and I never had nails myself

cause I never really like took care of my hands

cause I m always painting or doing something

and I also had to wear like pantyhose

because the eighties was all about that

and I thought, Am I gonna like have these nails

and put these pantyhose on at the same time?

Like you guys have to choose which one you want me to do.

But I actually ended up doing both.

I was forced to and I m so glad I was.

This is when I was walking outside of some press event

and this Tory Burch jacket I have,

and it just works with everything.

I think the key

to good street style is just being comfortable,

but also knowing when you wanna cover,

you know, what s underneath.

So you don t wanna reveal the surprise underneath.

Also sunglasses are like kind of always cool.

This was for the Toronto Film Festival.

This was a movie that I worked on with Steven Soderbergh

who is, I idolize, in Presence.

So, Manfredonia is this dress.

I remember putting a belt on it to sort of cinch the waist

to, you know, kind of make the body

look a little taller and longer

and it really photographed like incredibly as well.

We are in Germany and this is a premiere for Red One

and this is Zuhair Murad, which is,

I mean, look at this work.

We built my entire suitcase around this dress

because of the, I guess these loops.

We thought that we d have to prop up the loops

and put all these things through it,

but it laid flat and it just popped right out

when I wore it.

And it s, it s incredible.

And I think it s one of those movies

that are gonna be like Home Alone

where the kids watch it over and over.

I know that I m going to, cause I m kind of a kid.

This was for the Academy Gala

and this was a moment that I will never forget.

I went with my dear friend Demi,

and we walked down this carpet together

because it s really intimidating

getting on a red carpet by yourself.

And so she was like, Let s go together.

And I was like, Yes!

And actually this dress is sort of

like Marie Antoinette-esque.

It had pockets, it was very, very lightweight

and just the color was beautiful

and this necklace is Margot McKinney

and we called them last minute on the day

and they showed up and boom, it was on my neck

and it like completed the outfit.

The whole thing worked and it was wonderful.

This is the poster for Rosemead.

In my entire career, 30-plus years,

this is the first time I m playing a lead.

So it s very meaningful to me.

I speak the language, you know, Mandarin Chinese in it.

And I also, I was able to link so much of my culture with it

and it was probably the most special project

that I ve ever worked on.

For me, my career has been built on playing a human being.

And so all of the roles that I ve ever played are to me,

roles that come from something organic in me.

And I think when the labeling is gone

and it s not like she s an Asian American actress,

when that day comes,

I ll know that I have succeeded

in actually accomplishing something miraculous,

which is to break out of those stereotypes and labels

and just to be an artist purely for being an artist.

I m gonna do a closed-eyed drawing

and then I m gonna sign it.

Just imagine something and then sort of feel it.

And like sometimes when you see something,

it actually makes it worse

because you re like thinking about it too much.

It s flowers in a vase.

This is the problem.

When I start to do something,

I have to really finish it.

For you.

I m totally overwhelmed.

I could cry, thank you.

Thank you for this moment.

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