Lucy Alexis Liu is an American actress and film producer. She became known for playing the role of the vicious and ill-mannered Ling Woo in the television series Ally McBeal , and has also appeared in several Hollywood films including Charlie's Angels, Chicago, Kill Bill, and Kung Fu Panda. She currently stars in the TNT original series Southland. Liu was born in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York. Her parents were immigrants from Taiwan. She has an older brother, John. Liu has said that she grew up in a "diverse" neighborhood. Her family spoke Mandarin at home and she did not learn English... until she was five years old. Her father, Tom, was a civil engineer, and her mother, Cecilia, a biochemist, but they sacrificed those careers in Taiwan to come to the United States. Liu, at her parents' insistence, devoted her spare time to studying. She attended the Joseph Pulitzer Middle School and she graduated from New York City's Stuyvesant High School in 1986.
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