Lucy Liu

I think it's, as a child, when you are the one to advocate for your parents and to translate for your parents, when you become more fluid with the language, even though you don't have the experience to understand exactly what you're translating, it really changes the dynamic of yourself and your parents.

So you become the parent's

in that situation, even though they're the ones who have the authority.

So there's a very strange dynamic that occurs.

And I think that a lot of people that are children of immigrants have experienced that too.

And that's something that I wanted to imbue in Irene, that she was still very childlike when she was outside of her home and outside of her community.

It's funny because I've forgotten a lot of my childhood.

And I think it's probably because it was a lot of trauma of, you know, not feeling like you belonged or, you know, wanting to seem like everything was perfectly normal and not looking like everybody else.

I think that was also, I guess, difficult, you know, because on television, there was, you know, I Dream of Jeannie and the Brady Bunch and all those shows that really indicated that

you know, what life was like outside of your own home.

And I guess not having that in trying to aspire to something that you could never be or look like is a very strange, I guess, amalgamation of conflict, you know, as a child not understanding, like, why don't I see myself on television?

I remember thinking, like, why can't I just get into that get-smart world?

I didn't really understand that there were laugh tracks.

I thought that there was so much more entertainment and lightheartedness outside of the home, and I really wanted to fall into that world and just –

Walk right into that TV set.

Yeah, they just are just, you know, people are just amused.

And, you know, to me, I really thought that comedy was, you know, the way to someone's heart.

I think as a child seeing that, you know, that she was kind of treated in a way based on her fragmented English and also based on what she looked like, based on what we looked like, it was really infuriating as a child to see that.

And I think there was a helplessness and a feeling of wanting to stand up for your parents, but then also feeling like you didn't have a voice.

I don't know, but I feel like it was like an angel on my shoulder.