Poppy Liu

Home is more than just a physical location for free-dreamer Poppy Liu in the Netflix release No Good Deed. Sarah, brought to life by Liu in the binge-worthy show, finds herself at odds as she and her wife Leslie navigate the treacherous waters of Los Angeles real estate. The plot, which is set around a 1920s Spanish-style villa, is in the highly desired Los Feliz neighborhood.

Sarah and Leslie rashly jump on an opportunity to make an offer for the house in episode one; however, as the show develops and Sarah discovers the real chance to build a family through IVF, audiences see her grow into a multi-dimensional character—one that reflects Liu’s very own creative spirit. In No Good Deed, playing Sarah isn’t just about embodying a fictional character pining for a house. For Liu, it’s also about the concept of home which carries a similarly profound weight. “Home” ties together a feeling of comfort in her understanding of family, Asian culture, and international advocacy.

Liu is cognizant of these core values, and her exploration of them naturally flows into her portrayal of Sarah. She defines Sarah as intimately related to her own core values where family takes priority. “It was not that difficult to find Sarah at all,” she says. “When I play a character I have to do a ton of backstory creation and worldbuilding to authentically feel like I understand what drives them. With Sarah, it was not that hard.”

Liu deepens the conversation, reflecting on her own family and her new understanding of family after the birth of her child. “I just had a child a little less than two years ago,” Liu softens. “I feel very much defined by motherhood, and it has become the center of gravity in my life that everything else orbits around. Sarah is that way too—she's very maternal.”

On the surface, Sarah’s career as a dedicated doctor and Leslie’s as a lawyer create a high-achieving partnership. Adding another layer, the emotional chemistry the two hold is truly heartwarming – from resolving conflicts to playful repartee.

Still, Liu manages to take it a step further. Sarah’s persona is an inherent junction of the immense compassion and boundless humanity Liu feels in herself and for others. “She has this loving, motherly, empathic, heart-centered energy,” Liu shares.

At the core of Sarah’s persona is her cultural background which lies at the heart of her backstory. “She’s not written specifically to be an Asian character at all, and there's nothing really about her and Leslie's home or their lifestyle that shows culture,” Liu explains. “She's first or second generation most likely. She is a doctor, so I'm sure there is a family dynamic of this job that many kids of immigrants are expected to do. That really helps me understand who she is. She is this ideal sort of child.”

No Good Deed is truly a show for everyone, and Sarah and Leslie’s playful yet grounded dynamic adds a layer for viewers to explore LGBTQ+ relationships. For Liu, it meant contrasting her own cultural expectations and relating them to her vision of Sarah’s backstory. “Sarah is in a queer relationship. I wonder what those conversations were like with her parents,” Liu says. “I certainly had those conversations with my parents about being bi, especially when I was in queer relationships and the difficulty around that. That probably shapes how she thinks about family or her strong desire to start a family with Leslie.”

At the same time, Liu feels an inextricable detachment from Sarah. Liu’s strong ties to her heritage and culture through her family and lived experiences contrast Sarah’s motivations in the show. “I'm quite different from Sarah because I do feel incredibly Chinese, and I do feel like it's a really, really big unavoidable part of who I am,” Liu shares. “I don't know if it's that much for her. She's driven by other stuff a little bit more.”

The Chinese-American actress was born in Xi'an, China and immigrated to Minnesota, where she lived with her mother and father for 12 years. Moving back to Shanghai, China at 14, she attended an American school. Her father earned a second engineering PhD in Minnesota while her mother, originally an engineer and teacher in China, worked blue-collar jobs to support her family.

Looking back, Liu appreciates the sacrifices her immigrant parents made for her education and upbringing—an experience that she now understands as a mother herself. “I've always appreciated my parents, but I have a deeper perspective of it now that I have my own child,” Liu admits. “It's so much to raise a child and to do that while you're new in a country and basically starting from scratch again. I just have so much love and respect for my parents. I can't even really imagine [their experiences] because I feel it's taking all of my energy to just be a parent to my child, and I'm quite secure in my career.”

In light of her unique experience as an immigrant, Liu is tremendously transparent with herself through Sarah, whose last name is Weber. “I know Asians who have changed their last name so it doesn't read Asian immediately," Liu shares. “That's another aspect of assimilation that is a big part of the Asian diasporic experience too. I was like, ‘that's interesting [because,] as a doctor, maybe Sarah thought she needed to [change names] to be taken more seriously. I don't know if it really shows on screen in terms of the story of No Good Deed but, at least for me approaching any character, I see it from the lens of who I am.”

Liu’s self-exploration of identity and the journey she continues to take to understand herself on and off screen would not be complete without mention of her activism. Forging the world of advocacy and art together, she has created a profound dynamic to share and humanize the world around her. “We have a responsibility as artists,” Liu emphasizes. “For artists, we have a very specific role, which is reflecting the world back [the way] we see it and being brave to practice empathy.”

Liu redefines activism, making it a point that it is a collective category for actors and actresses worldwide. “Our whole job is imagining ourselves in other circumstances and in other people's shoes. That is activism. That is caring about people that are outside of you. That caring about stuff happening on the other side of the world. For me, they’re very, very tied and similar.”

Liu has reached far and wide to seek an understanding of her cultural background, and her gratitude for her familial roots provides immense dimension to the roles she plays. Her deep obsession and association with Sarah’s “Asianness” transcends the mark of a skilled actress, shining a more subtle light on her as a natural storyteller with an extraordinary amount of insight to share. Liu is a mother, activist, filmmaker, and immigrant; she is soulfully Chinese and even more. If anything, acting is just a creative means of releasing her creative ambitions, giving her an opportunity to reflect on her lived experiences.

Putting aside Sarah’s positive pregnancy test, a solved murder case of the Los Feliz house and so many more plot twists, the final scene of the show offers a poignant reflection of Sarah and Leslie’s journey. The camera zooms out to reveal the new homeowners, Sarah and Leslie, watching over a mandarin tree in the backyard.

“You see a lot of the tree in the show. My character and [Leslie] are very much defined by their relationship to motherhood: the desire for it and the loss [of it]. It is so much of their emotional landscape. So, this tree—this living thing that you tend to, nurture, and watch grow—is very much these two characters. It makes a lot of sense for me that they're the ones who notice it the most.”

The mandarin tree stands as more than just a metaphor for the deep emotional understanding Sarah and Leslie share; it is a testament to the quiet beauty of building a life rooted in love. For Liu, it further mirrors her own journey of self-discovery through the characters she so vividly brings to life, each one helping her cultivate a deeper understanding of herself and the world around her.