Poppy Liu

Poppy Liu is a bilingual, first generation Chinese American actress born in Xi'An, China and raised between Minnesota and Shanghai. Poppy began performing at age 4. Her early performance background began with traditional Chinese dance which she performed for 10 years from childhood through early adolescence. At age 14 Poppy moved to Shanghai with her family where she began studying theater. Upon moving to New York in her early 20's, Poppy became active in New York's downtown theater and puppetry scenes. Poppy's entry into film began with a number of collaborations with Chinese American and women indie filmmakers. In 2016 Poppy produced her first narrative short film Names of Women (2017) which she toured around the country speaking at numerous college campuses and conferences. In 2017 Poppy and her collaborators began producing Mercy Mistress (2018), a viral web series based on the memoirs of a Chinese American professional dominatrix in which Poppy stars as the title character Mistress Yin. In the fall of 2018 Poppy made her network television debut on NBC's New Amsterdam (2018). In 2019 Poppy appeared as a series regular on NBC's Sunnyside (2019) and was recognized as one of 'Fall TV Breakout Stars' by TVLine, and in 2021 Poppy broke out in the critically-acclaimed, award-winning HBO Max series Hacks (2021).