Liu was born in Xi'an, China. Her family moved to Minnesota when she was two while her father, an engineering professor, earned a second PhD. During this time, her mother attended night classes in computer programming and worked at hotels and McDonald's. The family moved back to China when Liu was 14, where she attended an American school in Shanghai. During high school, she became interested in performing, and participated in Chinese dance, ballet and theater.[2][3]
After graduation, Liu founded the production company Collective Sex, with a focus on decolonizing storytelling and eliminating stigmas around sex and identity. In 2018, she debuted her short film Names of Women in New York City, which also toured across the country at college campuses and reproductive organizations. The film was made with an all-female crew and is based on a true abortion story.[4][5]
Liu starred as Greta Leung, an assistant and housekeeper to Rachel Weisz's characters Beverly and Elliot Mantle in the 2023 Amazon Prime Video miniseries Dead Ringers. The series won a Peabody Award for "aptly packaging a bold adaptation of this twinned-body horror classic within the continued nightmarish world of women’s reproductive health care in the United States."[1]
Personal life
Liu is a doula and offers free services to women of color and transgender people. Liu is nonbinary, uses they/she pronouns, and identifies as queer.[10][11] She had an abortion in 2015,[12] which inspired a short film she created.[10]
Liu met U.S. marine officer Jonah Tucker in 2020 and they subsequently began dating.[13][14] She gave birth to her and Tucker's first child in 2022.[12][15] Liu and Tucker ended their relationship shortly after their child was born.[16]
