Meet Poppy Liu, who plays Helen on Netflix’s His & Hers – and was also Kiki on Hacks

Perhaps best known for their role as Kiki, an upbeat blackjack dealer on HBO Max’s comedy-drama Hacks, actor Poppy Liu is now appearing on Netflix’s latest limited series, His & Hers, which has generated an online buzz among thriller fans.\n\nThe show, which premiered on January 8, follows a couple investigating a murder in which they both believe the other is the prime suspect. Liu – who just turned 35 – takes on the role of Helen Wang, a headmistress at an all-girls’ school.\nHere’s everything to know about Poppy Liu.\nTheir love for performance started young\n\nBorn in Xian, China, Poppy Liu moved to Minnesota at age two so their father could pursue a second PhD while their mother worked blue collar jobs including at McDonald’s, per Paper Magazine. Liu’s family later moved back to China when they were 14.\nIt was in high school in China that Liu’s love for performance really took root. They excelled in traditional Chinese dance and theatre but told the publication that acting never seemed like a viable career path. With their parents’ support, though, they appeared in every school play throughout high school. Later, Liu attended Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, where they majored in women’s studies and theatre, per the university paper.\nLiu is as queer and non-binary, and uses both she/her and they/them pronouns.\nThey started their own production company\n\nAfter graduating in 2013, Liu founded Collective Sex, a New York City-based production company dedicated to storytelling that destigmatises sex and identity. The idea came to Liu after she underwent an abortion in 2015. “As a pro-choice person, I felt empowered in my decision and yet I felt really lonely during that period,” they told Colgate Magazine.\nLiu went on to produce and star in the short film Names of Women (2018), a project about that experience with an all-female crew. Their company has since worked on queer and sex-positive works such as Mercy Mistress (2018-19), in which Liu also starred. Alongside producing, Liu has steadily built an acting résumé that includes appearances in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Better Call Saul, Hacks and, most recently, His & Hers.\nThey’re a trained doula\n\nBeyond acting, Liu is also a trained doula, providing emotional and physical support over the childbirth process. They offer their doula services free of charge to women of colour and queer and trans people of colour, as per queer publication The Advocate.\n