Poppy Liu on ‘Dead Ringers,’ their confusing ‘Titanic’ crush, and why Jean Smart is the best

Do not adjust your TV set: Sure, you might be see Poppy Liu on pretty much every channel right now, but that’s exactly how it’s meant to be.

The charming, chameleonic performer has had an incredible past few years, appearing in everything from Better Call Saul to iCarly to Hacks. And, over the next few months, they can be seen in Disney+’s fantasy series American Born Chinese and the second season of AppleTV+’s genre-hopping mystery, The Afterparty.

But first, they’re absolutely not to be missed in Dead Ringers, Prime Video’s buzzy adaptation of the David Cronenberg thriller. Liu plays Greta the mysterious assistant to the Mantle twins, Beverly and Elliott, two celebrated gynecologists who both happen to be played by the iconic Rachel Weisz.

As Liu jokes, two times the Weisz is enough to make anything a must-watch for queer audiences (“Even if it was Rachel Weisz twice in The Fast And The Furious, it would still be queer”), but they’re especially excited for everyone to go on Dead Ringers‘ dark, “juicy” thrill ride.

With the series premiering this weekend, it was the perfect time to invite Liu to the hot seat for our rapid-fire Q&A series, Dishin’ It. In our conversation, the actor touches on the complicated feelings they had while watching Titanic at five years old, their special surprise from Jean Smart, and why Dead Ringers feels especially relevant to them as a new parent.

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Is there a piece of media—whether a movie, TV series, book, album, games, etc…—that you consider a big part of your own coming-out journey, or that has played an important part in exploring your own queerness? Why does it stand out to you?

There are many things that shaped my understanding of my own queerness, but the earliest one was when I watched Titanic when I was like five or six. As a young child, Kate Winslet as Rose was everything. But also I remember I couldn’t tell if she was hot—in the mind of my freaky five-year old self.

And my parents were like, “Oh, whoops, I don’t think you should have watched that!” But we had just immigrated to America, and I feel like it’s a common story in a lot of like immigrant kids’ journeys that we all watched a bunch of other inappropriate television and movies when we were really young just because we didn’t know better.

But I was like, “Rose is everything”—oh my god, my little heart—but also Jack, too. I both felt attracted to Jack and wanted to be Jack, too. And it was just so much to unpack!

And then I think that more into my adult life, it’s just been nice to see some media I recognize myself, or I see something that feels aspirational. And I would say Faye Wong holds a really special place in my heart. She occupies her own space in… the cultural lexicon is significant to me.

Congratulations are in order because you recently became a parent! With that in mind, it’s kind of wild to see you in Dead Ringers, which is about Rachel Weisz’s twin gynecologists whose work is focused on fertility. Did you learn anything valuable about pregnancy and childbirth—or about what NOT to do—while working on the series?

The series kind of overlaps very interestingly with my own work as a doula and my interest in birth justice and reproductive justice, so I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

The idea that it’s possible to have agency over your own birth is a big thread. In the world of the show, Beverly’s POV feels very much like idealism of wanting people to have a “bespoke” birthing experience. And that feels like a very GOOP-esque word, like something that people of only a certain class are able to access.

But I think that, at the core of what she’s saying—that everyone should have the means and the access and the resources to have the birthing experience that they want—is so important. And we should have the resources to make informed and safe decisions about our body, but a lot of the times those options just aren’t even available to us. [Sometimes] it’s not even a matter of if we have choice or not, it’s literally a matter of access. Like, is this a state where abortion is legal? Can someone get gender-affirming hormones here, or will they be criminalized for that? It’s really about access and safety to access the things that we need for ourselves.

Where’s one of the first places/spaces you can remember that made you feel a part of a queer community?

It took me a while to understand my queerness because I think I needed to understand myself as like a Chinese person [first.] In a lot of my early 20s, I considered myself an ally where I was like, “I feel very passionate about this, but I don’t think it’s me though.” And, looking back, it’s because a lot of those queer spaces were just very white. Regardless of being incorporated myself, I just didn’t feel like the space was for me and, therefore, maybe queerness isn’t.

So I think it took until I really became connected with queer API and QTPOC communities in my mid-20s. A couple of my friends at the time had formed a group called The Yellowjackets Collective, which was all queer people of the the API diaspora. NQAPIA would host a lot of events and a lot of my friends were involved with that, too. I think I just met community that were other queer Asian artists, and that’s where everything just kind of clicked. It’s like when you discover a new language—like, “This feels right; this makes sense.” But I just never really was in spaces that were both queer and Asian before [that.]

Inspired by Dead Ringers, if you had an identical twin, what’s something you’d ask them to do for you (i.e. a chore, task, or anything you don’t like doing) and why?

I’ve actually thought about this a lot! When I was younger—I have a little sister who’s 14 now, but we have an 18-year age gap—so I was essentially an only child. And I used to always fantasize about having a twin, or any sibling in general, but specifically a twin because I really grew up in Mary Kate and Ashley’s heyday.

It just seemed so fun to have a twin. I remember I would lay in bed like, “If I had a twin right now, they’d be in the other room and I can’t fall asleep, and I wonder if they can’t fall asleep either!” And I’d just want to run over to their bedroom and we’d be [laughing] and [reading] books by flashlight, or whatever. So, we’d just do shenanigans—we would live like Mary Kate and Ashley. We would do New York Minute and the Paris movie, and then we would open up our own clothing line.

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You’re also so wonderful on Hacks, which has probably the most lovable, queerest comedy ensemble on television right now. What’s a standout fun/fond memory you have of being on set with everyone that you can share?

Oh, I love Hacks. This isn’t an on-set memory, but Jean [Smart] threw me a surprise baby shower, which I literally did not know [about.] She really got me with it. She had said that it was like a housewarming and had asked me to save the date months in advance. So I just had the date on my calendar, and then the week of I didn’t hear anything about it, so I was like, “Jean, is your housewarming still happening?” And she was like, “Oh my god, yes! You’re gonna be there, right?”

Meanwhile, I didn’t hear anything because everyone was trying really hard to not spill the beans, and they had a whole like cast thread and email thread planning it—everyone was scared that they would say something. Looking back, it felt really risky because what if, day of, I’m not feeling great? Because I was eight months pregnant then!

But I got her a housewarming gift, and show up like, “Where is everyone?” And Jean’s like, “Do you like the decorations?” Because there were balloons everywhere and stuff. And then she was like, “Do you like what the balloons say?” They [said,] “Congratulations on your baby,” and I still was like, “That’s so random to have at your housewarming.” It is it just took me so long. And she’s like, “It’s all for you!” And I was like, “But what about the housewarming?” And then I immediately started crying. It was really, really sweet.