It Girl | LI LU
Y’all it has been a long time coming for this interview. I could easily spend time beating myself up for how long it took me to get this interview live. I will spare you all. I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Li at an event in LA when Aspiring co. was covering the United State of Women event. (recap here). We chatted over a year ago and this interview has been sitting in my vaults waiting for editing. Those close to me know I have been struggling to find inspiration since Forbes and also recovering from a Stroke. This interview has given me such a new perspective. I am trusting the timing of life that now is when my spirit needed this lift and now is when it was supposed to be shared. Li is such an incredible soul.
Name: Li Lu
Age: 30
Job Title/Company: Writer/Director
Education Background: BA University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts
Tell us a little about who you are.
I was born in a town near Shanghai and my family came to the United States when I was five years old and we settled smack dab right in the middle of West Philadelphia where my parents were going to school at the time. They went to Drexel. So I grew up there until about fifth grade. I then moved to Texas, to Houston and then to a suburb called Sugarland. And that's where I finished out the rest of my grade school.
So that was a really interesting transition between two very different places. When you're a kid, you hate moving and you have to make new friends and, you know, just like asking your parents, "Why?" But now looking back, I'm really happy that I got to experience so much of the country. And then also for a year while we were living in Philly, we took a year to go live in Eugene, Oregon where my dad was doing his post-doctorate. So I moved around a whole bunch and now looking back, I think it's really given me the big life skill to just be comfortable anywhere and to really observe and to see how my new environment is. And it works really great because as a film director, you're entering into a new world with each script, each project, and you really want to see it through your lens but also uphold the authenticity of what that world is as well.
So I think that's where those skills can be directly traced back to. It was in Houston, I was pretty active in the local dance community. I was in a dance company called Dance of Asian America and we performed a lot of traditional Chinese dance and ballet, modern and hip hop also around town. And also we toured in China, which was really great and really formative. And my dance background also feeds into what I do with my filmmaking, because choreography, blocking, it's all a dance between the camera and the people in my approach to it.
I came to LA for school. I went to USC film school, the famous USC film school. But after film school I felt like it didn't really know actually how to make a film from top to bottom. So I spent the next 10 years on set working as a first assistant director, which basically means you are in charge of everything onset. We spoke about this a little bit at the panel at Mar Vista. Everyone looks to you for the schedule. Everyone looks to you for logistics. Everyone looks to you to know what's going on. And I learned a lot about directing and also just being a leader in that position. But after that experience, I wanted to be creative again. I wanted to make my own work. So I made my first feature film, which is called There is a New World Somewhere, and we shot in New Orleans. It was such a great experience to make a feature and to have it be distributed theatrically and on-demand and, see that whole full-circle experience was really great.
And since then I've been exploring even new mediums. And I'm currently in the midst of making my first docu-series here in Texas about a mosque that unfortunately was burned down on the night that the travel ban was enacted last year. And now I'm also looking for opportunities in television. I'm currently doing the Fox Director's Lab where they selected seven directors to mentor within a year's time to hopefully transition them into directing for television.
“So that’s a big thing I’ve had to learn about myself, is success is what you make of it and how you define it for yourself.”
2. What sparked your interest in starting your business?
I think I wanted to be a person who isn't afraid to do any project that I felt passionate about. And as a writer/director you really have to generate your own work to be seen in this industry in the first place. But unlike some, I wanted to generate work that I felt and care deeply about, that represented my values, what kind of media that I wish I could see, either through representation or through the representation of stories and values. And that's what really inspired me to go into my line of work. I wanted to be an author of work that I felt passionate about. And I feel perceptive in a way where, as a woman of color from the south, as I think I could claim Houston or in Texas as probably the place where I'm from, especially now living and working in California, I feel like the media, the films, the stories that we're telling, they're not authentic to the experience of what it means to be a person of color or just even a person from the south or the person from these communities that are hard to represent.
So I felt like in order for me to combat any of that, I have to create those narratives. I have to create those stories. I have to create these projects. Because if I'm not going to do it, who will? So I think that's where it all springs from, is the need to be able to tell stories that I'm passionate about, because those same stories I know other people are passionate about. Because they're yearning for those stories as well. They're yearning for that bright representation. They're yearning to be seen by the culture at large. And that's what keeps me going.
3. Who are you most influenced by?
Oh my goodness. I don't know if I'm most influenced by one person, but I can just say that I'm most influenced by women. We're living in such an incredible time where, actually, it's a hard thing to answer as to who you're inspired by because there are so many people that you can be inspired by. Right? Right. From the political side, you have all of these great women from Stacey Abrams to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez even to Rashida Tlaib (and Ilhan Omar), the first Muslim women to be elected to Congress. You have all these wonderful, incredible people that are being the change that we're waiting for, you know, on the political aspects. And then for film too like, just even recently seeing the success of crazy rich Asians and seeing the career of someone like Michelle Yeoh, that's just been such a strong female character and unapologetic at that, carry herself through this career.
Her being part of this ensemble moment for this film that is doing so well has really served this community, the East Asian community in a way that we've never been served before recent times. I'm inspired by the people around me that are being successful in the things that I hope to achieve as well, and that's a collective effort. And that's what I really loved about what Michelle Obama said during our conference too. It's not just about one person because someone was like, you should run, right? It was just like, no, no, no, no. Like, it's not about one person coming in to save all of us. It's about how we save ourselves and how we look inward. And we really have to have that difficult conversation to say, what will it take for me to be the change that I'm waiting for?
So, yeah, I'm inspired by everyone right now. Everyone is just doing that because there's people, there's heroes amongst us, all around us. And that's what really is, that really gives me so much inspiration to keep doing what I'm doing.
4. What was your first job and how long did you hold that position?
Well, I had a great first job. I was a teacher's assistant for my dance school, so I would help my ballet teacher, my Chinese dance teacher. I would help her with the classes, with the little babies, all of it from, I want to say from five and up. We had little girls and sometimes little boys come in and take dance classes and I would be the extra set of hands. And that was my first job and I kept it for probably my last two years of high school and I loved it. I got to really learn how to be with kids and some very basic teaching skills and responsibility. Yeah, I really loved it.
5. Can you share one of your proudest achievements with us?
I'm gonna reference it as a moment that happened recently because it's strongest right now in my mind. So during the making of this documentary, I've gotten to know this family really well and it's a family of three girls. They have brothers that have already graduated and are living in different places now. But the youngest starts middle school tomorrow actually. And I've gotten to know the family for about a year, a little bit more than a year. And during my last trip down here, she - her name is Bareera. - she gave me a piece of art that she had made in class, and the piece of art was on a pretty big canvas and she had painted an image of a woman.
And on the bottom it says, "The future is female." And I just thought to myself, this is what it's about. If I could have done that, then everything is worth it. The parts of my life where I feel like I've achieved something is when someone has a personal connection to me or my work. Like if watching my first film someone says, "I connected so much to your characters because I felt I felt so stuck at a certain point in my life and I probably still feel that way, but I feel so alone." I think those kinds of personal connections are the reason why I do this because we want these, we want these mediums to be able to have a touchstone or some kind of one-to-one connection to the audience, the person that's watching. And in the instance of this young woman, just for her, I realized that I was maybe being a role model in a way that I wish I could have been for myself. And what a great time that we live in right now, or where young women can have role models and can say things like, "The future is female." That's such a great thing! So that piece of art, it's going to hang directly in my office and it's going to remind me every day of why I work hard and why I should give everything 110%, because it's about one life, changing one life through my work or through your relationships and realizing that everyone can learn from each other.
6. What were your initial goals with your work? How have they evolved?
I think my initial goals were to make work that I felt expanded or could really push the medium of film and storytelling. I always wanted to tell stories that were meaningful to me but also, I think I also wanted to make something you need to look at as well and you need to experience, and that's just it in the sense that I care less about that now than the actual story. I think I'm much more material and intent-driven now with my work.
And I think that's what happens with artists too. If you see their work over a timeline when you start working in a medium, you're really thinking about the medium first, but then as you continue to work, it becomes more about the content of that medium. Does that make sense? It's like my relationship with what I'm saying and how I'm saying it is the root of everything else that happened. Because if a tree has strong roots in the intent and in the subject matter, I think everything else in a way that you tell it all the things that spring up from the roots, at least they're grounded in something authentic and real. It's not the other way around where the way that you're telling the story takes more of an important, takes a bigger mental real estate than the story that you're telling. And that's something you learn as you get older, I think, and it's just more advanced in your career. Everything needs to stem from the story, everything needs to stem from intent and what the project is really about.
7. What do you think is the most important life skill you learned through your work?
The most important thing that I've learned is that nothing can replace your intuition. I think when I was younger I really put more faith and more of an importance on what other people who had "more experience" than I thought to do in certain situations. Even though my intuition and my gut was telling me something different. And I can tell you all the times where I thought I was making a decision because someone else that was more experienced said that that was the right decision, or the industry wants you to make this decision. All those times where my gut had told me, "No, that's not the right decision." My gut was proven right. And I've said this and I think people really respond to this too, nothing can really ever replace your own sense of right and wrong. And it doesn't matter if you're just starting out or are entering into a thing that you've never done before. Your moral compass, your own sense of intuition, your sense of right and wrong, that's something that you carry with you throughout everything that you do. And that's something I've had to learn to remind myself again. And I think even finally now, I'm finally really starting to live that truth for myself. And also that's tied into how you take care of yourself too, and being really realistic and really honoring what you're capable of and how and how you want to take control over your own life in a way. I think that's what my thirties so far have taught me, is how do you really rest on your intuition and what you want and have that principle shine through all facets of your life.
8. Where do you hope to be in five years?
I hope to have made my second feature. I hope to be directing episodic television. Such great stories are being told through television and series now. I think that's such a great opportunity for storytellers to really enter into the world and fall in love with it and tell an incredible story with incredible depth and an incredible ending. So I hope to be doing that, and I hope to be doing the projects that I'm passionate about, you know, whatever it might be. I just hope that I'm passionate about it and, and then giving it my all.
9.What is a typical day like for you?
It depends on the day. It really does. I have three projects that are going on simultaneously. I feel like I have to just stir the pot on each one every single day. And some days one pot gets stirred more than the other one. I'm trying to wake up early, trying to be an early riser now, when my DNA is of a night owl. But I'm trying to wake up earlier and have more time for myself in the morning to get situated for another successful day. But right now, my days consist of working with my documentary team, about making sure we're not missing any important events for the story, checking in with the subjects because they've been my friends and they've been people that I care about in my life. So I want to check in with them and make sure that I know what's going on in their lives and they know what's going on in mine.
I'm working with an editor right now to cut a preview of the doc, so interfacing with him. For my second feature, I'm going to New York to insert into a Project Forum for IFP Week next month. So I'm working with a designer to design a lookbook for the film that will print out and have ready for those meetings. I'm working on a second draft of the script because it got selected into the second round of the Sundance labs, so that's due on Friday. And then for TV, for the Fox program we're meeting such great executives and mentors and television directors. I just want to make sure that I'm soaking in all of that material and I'm continuing these conversations with these incredible people that they're having us meet.
And also we're trying to figure out what show that we can shadow on in the Fox family. So keeping all of those connections. And all the while trying to keep my home life and take care of myself and all of that. I'm editing a post, a bunch of PSAs to get out the vote in November. So each day it's like, "What needs the most help, what's screaming at me the most." But at the same time just trying to keep myself level headed, and that's what, experience for 10 years has really taught me so much about life and how to handle stressful moments in life. Because if you've come to it with a mindset of like, oh, it's already done and I have to do it, I think you can sort of control the anxiety that these things would usually beset someone with.
10. What was the biggest obstacle you’ve faced so far in the process of pursuing your goals?
How to define what success means to me. You know, society and the people around you, whatever industry you're in - they have this idea of different opinions about what success means. But I think if you compare yourself to other people and to other things, you're never going to be happy, you know? Because someone is always going to be doing something bigger and better than you, or you think that would be the case.
I mean, I think success needs to be a personal statement and feeling because no one knows what you had to struggle through to get to where you are right now. Only you know that. You know, and only to people that you entrust with that information, and that kind of inward look on yourself knows that; because it's not fair to say the success of one person that had it is the success of what you accomplished, because you're different people and your paths are different, and people are dealt different cards when they're born into this world.
So that's a big thing I’ve had to learn about myself, is success is what you make of it and how you define it for yourself. And you can enjoy and celebrate your success no matter how small in the same “largeness” that you know, that the industry decides to celebrate success or define as success. It's all how you want to define it for yourself.
11.What is the best piece of advice you have received?
I keep thinking of my grandfather right now, cause he's the hero of my life. I think what he said to me was, “There's nothing to be afraid of - you know - fear. It's okay to be afraid of it for a little bit. But then when you realize that you are in control of how you carry yourself - what you say and what you do - then there's nothing to be afraid of.”
You know, I think fear should be an indicator that you should do something cause it excites you in a way, in the right context. But I've had to channel fear towards that direction from where it was wired from before. You know, cause fear used to be a reason why I definitely didn't do anything or felt unworthy to do something - because I wasn't brave enough. There's a lot of self-judgment when you feel fear because you're like, oh we were not brave enough to do it, or you're already scared, you know? And it's not that you shouldn't feel fear or ignore fear - you should feel all your feelings, but then decide what you should do with that. What’s the next step.
12. When do you get your best ideas?
I get my best ideas when I have a moment to myself, whatever that might be. You know, just even on the plane ride here, back to Texas this last time I had a really great moment where I took a late flight and there was no one in my entire row. I was like, oh, this is great. I got to stretch out. And I did something that I haven't done in a really long time, and almost made me sad that I hadn't done in a long time. I just wrote a journal entry. I just wrote to myself and that was such a great moment. It's one of those things that I was like, oh yeah, I should do this more, just be self-reflective and think to myself, “Okay, where I am, where am I now? How do I feel? How do I show gratitude towards all the opportunities that have come before me?” And also looking forward: where do I want to go and how to get there.
The time to do that has been very rare because I’m always pulled in all different directions. I live with my boyfriend so I want to be there and be present for our relationship and all that stuff. Or prior to that, I lived by myself for like, you know, 10 years or however long I started living on my own. I think that's something that I'm still learning how to do, but I think that's also when my best ideas come to me. When I don't have an agenda, you're just sort of reflecting on what you're doing. You're able to just be open for things to come to you in a much more clear kind of way.
“Because they’re yearning for those stories as well. They’re yearning for that bright representation. They’re yearning to be seen by the culture at large. And that’s what keeps me going.”
13. Can you share with us one time that you failed and what you learned from that failure?
Oh yes. I love, I mean, I've learned to love failure because if you can't fail then you can't win. You can't succeed. I remember going to interview for a digital series that was about - the whole story was an Asian American girl going through high school and living through a traumatic event. And it was a series, and I was trying to break into it more episodic work. And I thought this is going to be great. Like, what a wonderful way to get into episodic work with this story. I can just, I am that story. And I knew one of the executives on the show and I knew the crew and like, you know, everything seemed great. And then I had to meet the real person, the showrunner who could really make or break the hiring component. And I met with her and I thought it was an okay meeting. You know, we connected over the story and I expressed why this story is so ‘in my bones’ in a way.
And lo and behold, I wasn't hired for that job. I wasn't hired. There were one, two, three, three slots available to direct different episodes of the series. And none of those people were people of color for this show. And this show was about, you know, young people in a high school mostly, you know, mixed, in terms of the backgrounds of the characters and all of that. So it was celebrating diversity on screen, but it wasn't celebrating diversity behind the camera. I was really depressed for a second there because I thought, if I can’t direct something like this and be given an opportunity then what can I do? You know, the math just doesn't add up in my mind. If I wasn't going to be hired for this kind of material and speak passionately about it and just be the material then what shot do I have?
It was a sobering moment, but then I realized that doesn't matter. The math doesn't matter because this happens all the time when people that are so right for the job don't get the job. You can't explain what's illogical, and you can't use logic as a way to get what you want because the world is the way it is. Right? And people are going to make decisions because they feel like those are the right decisions for them in the moment. And now I'm grateful that that didn't happen for me because I think if I had gone down that route, perhaps I’d be making more digital series and perhaps it wouldn't have been in consideration for this Fox lab, which is networks and really great other programming on property. A proper cable, you know? So I think with every opportunity that is denied as you, I think you have to have this almost superhuman belief that that door closing will lead to another door opening somewhere in the future. Everything that you think is a point where you feel like you failed, or didn't get something, or you did something wrong, it all needs to be a moment that informs and creates more opportunity in the future.
Even if it's something that you did and you're like, “you know, I really let myself down, I let someone else down.” It's all about the end: what do you? What do you do from that moment? And it's okay. Like I told myself - this is how I deal with my emotions, I don't know if this is healthy or not, but I told myself, “Okay Li, you're really depressed and I see that. You have a week to get this all out. You can be pissed off, depressed at all that stuff for a week, but after this week is done, no more. You know, you gotta move on, so get it out now because in a week you cannot feel this anymore.” So that's what I do. That's my trick.
14. How do you unwind?
Oh gosh. I actually, I just go to a park. Even watching TV for me is work cause I'm learning about what's current in the industry, you know. So if I watch like Top Chef or whatever, that's fine. I like watching Top Chef and cooking and eating, that's a good activity. I really like being outside when I can. There's a really great garden near my house, like a big botanical garden. I go and I just sit there and I really just put away all technology and just try to be in the moment. You know, I might have some paper and pen with me or something, but that's my best way to unwind is just to do that.
15. What would you tell someone else who is interested in entering your field?
Wow. I would tell them the truth, and the truth is that it's hard. This is a hard thing to decide to do. And the people that feel like there is nothing else that they could possibly see themselves doing are the ones that will succeed, because you have to give this all that you have and then some. It's not to say that you can't do other things in life like, you know, have a family and all those things. But you have to be so tenacious, and to know who you are. And in the process, find out who you are, and build that core of who you are, and stay true to who you are before you throw yourself into the storm of what this industry can be.
It takes a lot of inner strength. Passion is great, talent is even better, but this is an industry where everyone is so talented and everyone's going to work hard, so what are you going to do? What are you going to bring that will make you successful, make you be seen? You know? And I do think now that it's a game of longevity because I've seen people work really hard and get burnt out super quick. I've seen people that are like, you know, they'd dabble into it and out of it, they say they're going to make their first film or this or that, and then they don't. They raised money but they never make it. I've seen them do that. You really have to sit yourself down and really think, do I really want this?
And it's okay to take some time to dabble into it and see what it really is before you fall into it, but for me, like when I discovered that I could make films and write scripts - those things are so tied into who I am, and this discovering of who I am. So I'm kind of just, I'm stuck for life in a way.
I would be honest. I would say it's hard. It's very hard and you're going to be working really hard and sometimes you're not going to know for what at the end of the day, but you have to retain the bigger picture of why are doing what you're doing. You should be smart and strategic as to what you're doing, but it's not for the faint of heart.
But it's also incredible. You get to meet people and have so many experiences. You get to meet people and you get to live in different worlds. Through film, you can be anything. Through film, you can do anything. Just like acting. Through filming, you can learn and be in any world that you want to be in. And that's so, that's so incredibly fun and that's so incredibly rewarding. But that comes at a big price. You have to work really hard to be able to get those opportunities.
Yeah, it's a long game. Everyone is talented. Everyone's gonna work hard. It is a marathon and not a sprint, you’ve got to sustain yourself and know that you're building connections, building all of these things. You're building a house brick by brick, you can't stop midway. At the end of the day, it’s about who’s left in a strange way, you know?
If you're the only one that's left and there's an opportunity, you're the only one that can take it. You know? It's a really hard thing to quantify success because what do you say when asked about success, right? Success isn't the shelf of awards you're gonna win someday. The success is how did you triangulate and strategize and work hard towards being ready to get an opportunity once it came to you. That's how you build success. You know? And also this is a world where you can't really measure success. Like the award means nothing.
For me, when I look at it, an award where something happens to me and it's like a definitive like you've got this. I just think about all of the work that I've done to get to that point. And I feel like that is the reward, right? There's one thing that filmmakers say all the time: You have to enjoy the process. You have to enjoy the process because it's not just about, okay, I work so hard. I'm suffering through this, through the making of this film, just so I enjoy the release of the film and the award it's going to get and all that stuff. No, if that's your joy, your joy is so small and this huge timeline of making this film, making this project happen, you know, if you're not enjoying the whole process of what you're doing, then you're limiting your joy to a very small portion of this whole timeline.
And if that, if you don't get the awards and you don't get the things that you thought you would, that joy becomes a pain, right? So we have to find joy in the process. Because if you love what you do, that means you should love the process too of doing what you do. So, even though I'm running around going crazy, trying to eat where I can and taking crazy airplane trips, I have to enjoy all of this and for every second to say how lucky am I to be this busy? How lucky am I to be able to do the things that I'm so passionate about? You know?
16. What do you hope people take away from your story?
I hope people can take away the point that if they are passionate about what they want to do, that it can happen for you. You know, something that I think about and I worried about too is, in this time where we're breaking these boundaries and creating opportunity as women and people of color, I almost want the younger women - the girls becoming young women - I hope for them by the time that they're ready to decide on a career choice for themselves, I want all of the things that we're fighting for right now, just to be a given. You know, I want to create a world where it would be odd to say, “Oh, we should have a diversity program for this. Oh, we should probably think about this. Or you know, you're a girl, you can do anything that you want.” Well, it never occurred to that girl that she couldn't do anything that she wanted to.
So I want to create a world where we take this moment and we fight tooth and nail to create an opportunity to where future generations, when they come to this point in their life where they're just deciding what to do, nothing is off the table for them. Everything is a possibility and everything is equal opportunity. That's what I hope to do with the work that I do. It's what I hope to do with my personal activism and everything. And I hope that's the bigger picture thing for everybody too because it can be stuck into the personal a little bit, right? Where people feel like, you know, this is whatever. I don't want people to lose a script on what's happening right now. And I hope that's what people can take away from what I do. I hope other young women that see a likeness in me in any kind of way hear that. It's about what you want and where your passion is. I know in my culture, a lot of that is hard to realize and hard to own because of what your parents think, and what your elders think, and what your community thinks, and how success to them needs to be quantified and not qualified.
Because my parents still don't understand what I do. They're like, “Well, you're not making big money. You're not doing this. You know, you don't, blah blah, blah, blah.” You know, that's not what I want. It quantifies success for myself. So I think for, for any young person who feels like, “Oh, well I want to do something but the world around me, whether it be my family or you know, my culture or whatever, they say I can't do it because you know, there's not another you doing that already or this.” Like, fuck all of that. You know, if you have the passion and you are willing to work hard and you want to build your talent, I just feel like there's nothing you can't do. You’ve just got to love it. You’ve got to love it, and grab on, and not let go.
I wish someone could have told me that when I was young, you know? I really want to be that person for younger women because we grew up in an age where it's like, yeah, okay, women, lukewarm at best. There were some people that we saw that were really fighting, but I don't know, it wasn't just this like - like it was individuals and not group. You know what I mean? It wasn't, I didn't feel like there was even a way for me to access the resources that I wanted to, to get to that person or that story or that thing that would inspire me to go on. A lot of that has to come from within myself in a way. Cause it, if it didn't, it had to come from somewhere, you know. I just love this time that we're at because we can really make a push forward for younger generations to feel like, well, ‘what do you mean’ when these problems come up. It would be odd for this society that they'll inherit for these problems still to persist.
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