{"id":85054,"date":"2025-12-07T13:50:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T13:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/85054\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T13:50:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T13:50:20","slug":"lucy-liu-on-stepping-into-a-terrifying-new-role-in-rosemead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/85054\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucy Liu on stepping into a ‘terrifying’ new role in ‘Rosemead’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For Lucy Liu<\/a>, starting to understand the otherwise unfathomable choices of her character in the new film \u201cRosemead\u201d began with language.<\/p>\n

To play Irene, a San Gabriel Valley widow taking care of a teenage son with schizophrenia, Liu seized a rare opportunity to use the Mandarin she spoke growing up in a Chinese household in Queens, N.Y. After famously stretching her muscles as one of Charlie\u2019s Angels, the actor found herself working out every word just as hard with a dialect coach \u2014 and soon came to understand that the tragedy of the story, based on a 2017 Times article by then-staff writer Frank Shyong, originated long before its devastating end.<\/p>\n

Irene\u2019s difficulty communicating with both the American medical system and her troubled son, Liu realized, were central to the drastic action Irene takes when a terminal cancer diagnosis raises the prospect that her son will be left uncared for.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are other cultures that have similar problems, whether it\u2019s mental illness or not, but they talk about it,\u201d says Liu. \u201c[And] when you don\u2019t, it\u2019s going to lead to decision-making where you don\u2019t have options. What happened in this particular story was that the mother was just trying to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Lucy <\/p>\n

Lucy Liu in \u201cRosemead.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Jessica Perez \/ Vertical Entertainment)<\/p>\n

Liu has opened up dialogue of all kinds with \u201cRosemead\u201d since its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year. Her much talked-about turn has fostered discussions about issues close to her heart, for Irene\u2019s inability to address her son\u2019s plight is entangled with her struggle to converse in English, her fears of speaking up as an immigrant in America and the shame she believes his mental illness would bring in a community where psychological issues aren\u2019t often discussed.<\/p>\n

First, though, Liu first needed to confront her own fears \u2014 including her concern, despite the steely resolve that has been the hallmark of many of her most iconic characters, that she might not be up to the task.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was terrifying to know that the story existed, firstly,\u201d Liu says. \u201cAnd then it was more terrifying because I would have to embody this woman and make others care for her. I did not want to fail at that because I think that if you described it to somebody, she would be vilified quickly. So how do I counteract that by humanizing her and showing the love that she had for her son for her to do what she did?\u201d<\/p>\n

Remarkably, writer Marilyn Fu and director Eric Lin\u2019s thoughtful screen adaptation is the first of Liu\u2019s lengthy career to rest entirely on her shoulders as a dramatic lead. But the bigger part only allowed for more subtlety as Liu sought to inhabit someone made to feel small by her circumstances, who still doesn\u2019t shrink from doing right by her child.<\/p>\n

\"Lucy <\/p>\n

Lucy Liu.<\/p>\n

(JSquared Photography \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe language was a really important part of the character that I wanted the audience to absorb, that she was missing a lot of the things that she should have heard, including her own experience for her doctor visits,\u201d says Liu. \u201cIt touches a very deep part of me that I\u2019ve had to access a few times, but not to this level. Also to carry the weight of her illness in her body, it brings to the surface a lot of the realities of what life is for those that are older or ill or don\u2019t have the system working for them or that they can\u2019t advocate for themselves.\u201d Off-screen Liu had to fight for the film itself over a seven-year gestation, unwavering in her commitment to get the difficult drama made as a producer on the project and helping out with the search for an actor to take on the challenging role of Irene\u2019s son Joe, who is played with great nuance by first-timer Lawrence Shou. Although it was a lot for Liu to take on, letting go has been even harder.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can still feel her, and the vibration of what happened is so painful,\u201d she says of Irene. \u201cI had to really walk away from anything else after that for quite a while just to recalibrate and distinguish what is this going to teach me for myself as a mother, as a human being, as someone who sees others and to relate on a deeper level with [the idea that] you don\u2019t really know what\u2019s going on behind the scenes for anyone. \u2026 There\u2019s always a story behind it, and that gives me a greater depth of empathy for others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liu can be comforted by the fact that \u201cRosemead\u201d has seemed to stay with audiences as she\u2019s accompanied it on its travels from Philadelphia to Locarno and now into U.S. theaters. (It opens Friday in New York and Dec. 12 in Los Angeles.) Finding that the film has connected with moviegoers well beyond the Asian diaspora, she\u2019s been moved by the vulnerability of people who share their own experiences regarding mental health after screenings, well aware of the stigma still attached to speaking about such things publicly. It\u2019s an air of openness that she felt on the film\u2019s set and hopes will only expand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re working on something that deep, it does open up conversations about even your own family members and or people that you know that have struggled with it or have passed away, and it is what leads to the conversation that we\u2019re hoping for,\u201d says Liu. \u201cAnd I think [that\u2019s] what doesn\u2019t happen in the movie, which is tragic, is conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Lucy Liu, starting to understand the otherwise unfathomable choices of her character in the new film \u201cRosemead\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1872,1864,6193,48000,1793,48,52,51,14034,47,50,49,1741,47999,16785,48002,48003,48004,48001,7756,3044],"class_list":["post-85054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-actor","tag-audience","tag-character","tag-irene","tag-issue","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-language","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-lot","tag-lucy-liu","tag-mental-illness","tag-new-film","tag-other-culture","tag-own-experience","tag-rosemead","tag-son","tag-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}