Lucy Liu

Where do you think that knowing came from without a map to follow?

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

And I think the person that I could connect to was this, it was in, well, I know now that she was an actress, but I thought she was a real person that worked in a laundromat and it was a Calgon ad.

And she would say, Calgon, take me away.

And that was the person that I really thought, oh, I see myself.

So there's somebody in that set that looks like me, you know?

And so it's pretty funny to think about that now.

But yes, it was something that I really was just dreamed about.

And I didn't, I mean, the fact that I'm even here at NPR is just a dream come true.

Well, it was something that was your desire, but there were also people who saw it in you.

Is it true that someone saw you, like a scouting agent or someone saw you, discovered you on a subway?

There was a manager on a subway that gave me his card.

And I was, of course, very suspicious because we've lived this very insular life, you know, and who's this person giving me this card?

And how old were you about?

I was a teenager because I was going to high school at that point and taking the subway by myself.

So I was definitely in high school at that point.

And...

I remember, I mean, we only had yellow pages back then.

So I called the Better Business Bureau to find out if this person was real.

And it turned out he was real.