She is one of the first east Asian actors to play the lead in a big British drama, and her new show Red Eye is a nerve-jangler. She discusses culture shock, sexism and the sheer joy of making Crazy Rich Asians
As a teenager, Jing Lusi was something of a wild child. She was smoking and drinking by the time she was 13, frequently ended up in detention at school and even got suspended for smoking on school premises. “I needed to let off steam,” she says. The actor was rebelling against her strict parents but also against the stereotype of east Asians as well-behaved, “dorky” students. Hers was one of the few Chinese immigrant families living in Southampton in the 90s. She just wanted to fit in. “I managed to get through school by adopting this persona of: ‘I’m wild and erratic, don’t pick on me because I’m not submissive.’ It’s kind of stuck,” she says with a laugh.
Lusi has spent her career successfully dodging stereotypes. After a long-running part in the BBC’s Holby City, she appeared as a detective in the first series of the dark crime drama Gangs of London in 2020, and an MI6 agent in the 2023 spy thriller Heart of Stone. Her most high-profile role to date, though, was as a scheming lawyer – and the ultimate frenemy – in 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians, the trailblazing romcom featuring an all-Asian cast.
