Lucy Liu: One Outstanding Humanitarian
Deepak Chopra: Right now, you have a very popular show, too.
Lucy Liu: That’s right; yeah, “Elementary.” I’m playing Watson, so that’s obviously a very popular, historic character that I get to play.
Mr. Deepak Chopra: But, you’re Joan Watson, huh?
Lucy Liu: I’m Joan Watson. They changed the gender, and they changed the race.
Deepak Chopra: –So, is acting still your main passion?
Lucy Liu: Acting is a huge passion for me. I’ve definitely branched out into directing. I directed an episode last season, and they offered me one for this season, which is great.
Deepak Chopra: Now, let’s get into this other part of your life, the director part. You just had a movie released, “Meena,” which I happened to be there for the premiere.
Lucy Liu: Yes, which you so kindly co-hosted with us.
Deepak Chopra: It was actually a very moving, heart wrenching–20 minutes?
Lucy Liu: Twenty minutes, yeah.
Deepak Chopra: There’s a big, long story there in 20 minutes. What moved you to do this particular film? What’s the background? Your own interest in women’s rights and child slavery has a long history. That’s the backstory of this movie.
Lucy Liu: Yes, yes, indeed. I’ve been working with UNICEF since 2004. It’s been ten years.
Deepak Chopra: –You’re an ambassador for?
Lucy Liu: I’m an ambassador with UNICEF. I’ve gone on several different missions with them and have learned a lot about different causes. I had started originally interested in child’s education and nutrition, and it branched out into this other, very large and very important aspect of what children go through, which is just clean water in general, and outside of education, child protection. Child protection basically includes all of it. What this movie deals with is the unfortunate aspect of child trafficking, child sexual slavery, and child soldiering. This movie specifically deals with a young girl, who was taken by her uncle and sold into a brothel when she was eight years old. Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn wrote about that in one of their chapters in their book, Half the Sky. We tried to, basically, put it together in a very short, 20-minute film, which is what they originally wanted for PBS, and condense it and try to make it as visceral and as visual for the audience as possible.
