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Fresh Air

Lucy Liu

Fresh Air

NPR

Society & Culture, Books, Tv & Film, Arts

4.434.4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The child of Chinese immigrants, Liu grew up in Queens where she spoke Mandarin at home and didn't learn English until she was 5. She returns to the language in her new film, ‘Rosemead.’ It’s about a terminally ill mother grappling with her teenage son’s escalating mental health crisis and the impossible choices she faces to help him. Liu spoke with Tonya Mosley about rejection, representation, and the first time she heard her name in OutKast’s hit “Hey Ya.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0

This message comes from Bayer. Science is a rigorous process that requires questions, testing, transparency, and results that can be proven. This approach is integral to every breakthrough Bayer brings forward. Innovations that save lives and feed the world. Science Delivers.com. This is fresh air. I'm Tanya Mosley. My guest today is Lucy Lou. Over the past three decades,

0:24.8

Lou has become one of the most recognizable faces in film and television. From her breakout role on

0:30.3

Ali McBeal to the stylized violence of Kill Bill and her reinvention of Dr. Watson on elementary,

0:37.3

Lou has expanded representation of Asian-American

0:39.9

women on screen. She also directs and creates visual art, exhibiting her mixed media work

0:45.7

internationally. Her latest project is a film she spent years shepherding, and as the lead,

0:52.2

she takes on one of the most emotionally layered roles of her career.

0:56.4

It tells the story of Irene, a terminally ill Chinese immigrant living in California's San Gabriel

1:02.3

Valley, who discovers that her teenage son, who has become fixated on school shootings.

1:10.0

In a community where mental illness is rarely discussed openly,

1:14.1

Irene confronts this fear largely on her own.

1:17.9

And as her own time runs out,

1:20.0

she becomes haunted by a question she can't escape.

1:23.1

What if her son becomes violent?

1:25.9

In the end, she chooses to take matters into her own hands by choosing violence herself.

1:32.2

The film is called Rosemead, and it's inspired by true events.

1:36.6

Lou signed on as both a producer and star, and it's her first dramatic leading role in a feature film.

1:43.6

We spoke last week before the disturbing

1:45.6

acts of violence at Brown University, Bondi Beach in Australia, and the murders of the Reiner's.

1:53.0

Lucy Lou, welcome to fresh air. What a thrill to be here. I'm so happy to have you, and I'll tell

1:59.7

you I was so moved by this movie. I read that you

2:03.7

were kind of terrified when you first read the script for this. And I can understand why as we

...

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