Lucy Liu on Presence, working with Steven Soderbergh and the rising crescendo of her career

25:05Lucy Liu: Presence, experimental films, and how she got discovered on the subway

Lucy Liu stars in Steven Soderbergh's latest film, Presence, which puts a new spin on the haunted house story in that it doesn't unfold from the family's perspective, but rather from the point-of-view of the ghost.

In an interview with Q's Tom Power, Liu says she's been a "big fan" of Soderbergh's work ever since seeing his groundbreaking feature film debut, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, which came out in 1989, before she even became an actor.

"I feel like it interrupted my body chemistry," Liu tells Power. "It was so different from anything I had seen before…. When I saw Sex, Lies, and Videotape, I was so thrown by the intimacy of that movie and myself as an audience member. I felt like I was part of that movie. I think [Steven] planted the seed for independent filmmaking by creating that movie."

Liu found that same kind of intimacy while working with Soderbergh on Presence, which she calls "a very community-oriented work." The experimental horror thriller was shot in just 11 days (originally, they had planned for a 13-day shoot) on a small budget of under $2 million US.

Though she's best known for her work in commercial blockbusters like Charlie's Angels and Kill Bill, Liu has always had a deep interest in independent and experimental art films. When she got her start in the industry, she says diversity was so limited that there just weren't a lot of roles available to her.

I just don't think I could have seen my life in any other way than through the arts.- Lucy Liu

"I didn't have as many options when I was starting out," she says. "You just sort of go for the gold — and the gold was employment. It's not like, 'Oh, I can pick and choose what I want.' I would speak to a lot of friends that would audition 10 times a day, and I would maybe have 10 auditions in a year."

After landing her breakthrough role as Ling Woo on the hit series Ally McBeal, Liu says not that much changed for her. Rather than receiving a deluge of incoming calls from directors and casting agents, she had more of an "outgoing call career," where she had to break down the doors herself.

"I just don't think I could have seen my life in any other way than through the arts," the actor tells Power. "For me, it wasn't a sacrifice. It was sort of like, do or die, right? Because I love it so much that there was no other option for me. I didn't give myself another choice."

Looking forward, Liu says her career is only just now rising to a crescendo. "My story is just still in the beginning."

The full interview with Lucy Liu is available on our YouTube channel and on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. She also shares the story of how she was discovered on the subway in New York. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Lucy Liu produced by Catherine Stockhausen.