Poppy Liu. Photographed by Lenne Chai
In an interview with Vogue Philippines, Chinese-American actress Poppy Liu opens up about queer representation, activism as an actress, and her experience filming the Netflix series No Good Deed.
On the sunny streets of Los Angeles, there’s a 1920s Spanish-style villa owned by a couple just waiting to be sold. Enter six characters looking to buy the house, all with their own secret motivations. Not that the owners don’t have their own; in fact, they have to sell the villa before theirs is uncovered. The question is, who should they sell the house to?
Without giving away too much, this is the premise of one of Poppy Liu’s most recent projects, the Netflix series No Good Deed. Starring alongside actors Lisa Kudrow, Ray Romano, Luke Wilson, Linda Cardellini, O-T Fagbenie, Teyonah Parris, and Abbi Jacobson, Poppy Liu plays the role of Sarah Weber, a highly intuitive nurse looking to move on to the next step of her life with her wife, Leslie Fisher (played by Jacobson).
“I remember first hearing about it, like a year prior, and being like, ‘Oh, this is really cool. This is really exciting.’ And then I think, especially as the cast was taking shape, I was like, ‘This cast is so insane,’” Liu gushes about the show. Initially, she shares that she was drawn to the project because of show creator Liz Feldman, best known for her Dead To Me series. “There are certain directors whose works, you can just hear their voice in it,” she shares. “[Hers is] a very specific kind of mystery, but with a lot of humor, sarcasm, and dryness.”
Having done roles such as Kaye in Sunnyside and Zhen Zhen in Hacks, Liu found it easy to tap into Feldman’s humor in the show. But a large part of preparing for the role involved working closely with Jacobson and figuring out their characters’ relationship dynamics. “By the time we meet these two characters, they’ve been in a relationship for many years already. I think the biggest thing [we thought about] was, ‘What do we like in a relationship with each other?’”
She shares her favorite aspect of their characters’ storyline: “I love just being able to have characters that are queer, and their queerness isn’t the root of their trauma. They just get to be like, ‘This is just what we are, what our relationship looks like, and the issues that we have to deal with.’”
As a queer woman herself, she does see the value in unpacking queer trauma but she finds power in stories that explore other sides of their identity. “It becomes hard when people become defined by their trauma entirely and that’s also another way of minimizing someone’s experience,” she says. “To be like, ‘Oh, I only see you as a victim.’”
She continues, “Seeing the narratives of people experiencing joy or creating beauty amidst suffering, those are so important because there are just so many ways that we depict a person that’s suffering that turns them into one dimensional, flat, othered people, and that only enables more violence to be justified.”
For her, being an actor comes with a role in activism. “We are supposed to be able to wholeheartedly witness the world around us and speak on it. That’s always been the role of an artist,” she says. This is why for actors who come from underrepresented backgrounds, she encourages them to create their own projects. Not only for representation but also for creative fulfillment.
“There were moments where I was like, ‘I don’t know how long I can keep doing this.’ Just putting stuff out into the ether and hoping someone accepts it,” she says, recalling doing 87 audition tapes for several projects in a year before being cast in Hacks. As an actor, she emphasizes staying connected to storytelling by working on projects with friends or taking on roles where she has more creative agency, opportunities that she feels grateful to have.
“I never take for granted the pioneering that had to happen for me to come into my career in the last five, six years, and have such an exciting array of roles I get to play,” she says. And while the entertainment industry still leaves much to be desired, Liu’s career is a testament to how far it has come. “I feel like I could only have the career that I have right now at this moment in time, and I feel really lucky for that,” she says.
Photographer: Lenne Chai. Stylist: Lindsey Hartman. Production Designer: Katrina Songco. Makeup Artist: Michelle Chung. Hair Stylist: Tammy Yi for Exclusive Artists. Photo Assistant: Chir Yan Lim. Styling Assistant: Claire van Eijk. Producer: Leah Oliveria. Studio: Hype Studios
