Lucy Liu was in a hurry by the time I found her at ABC's fall TV preview party. She'd already done a whole night of press about joining the cast of Dirty Sexy Money, but she didn't want to leave without giving us a scoop. She made the connection from our previous interviews and acted genuinely happy to catch up before her car picked her up for the night.
Crave Online: What can you say about Nola Lyons?
Lucy Liu: I can say that she is going to start some relationships in the family that are going to cause a ripple that is probably going to cause a tsunami at some point.
Crave Online: What kind of person is Nola?
Lucy Liu: She's somebody who's trying to find herself.
Crave Online: What does it give you as an actor?
Lucy Liu: It gives me the opportunity to be a part of something creative with the team of writers as well as to basically go onto a show that has no limits. Because this family has so much money, I think anything is going to be possible. I think that's what we're going to go for.
Crave Online: How much money does Nola have?
Lucy Liu: She's pretty wealthy herself. She's pretty wealthy herself which helps.
Crave Online: Does this give you any insight into the world of the extremely wealthy?
Lucy Liu: I think there's a certain mentality about people who have money that I think is very interesting. I'm slowly learning about that as I progress in the people that I meet. It's incredible how generous people can be. It's incredible how it does change people when they do have money.
Crave Online: How did they approach you for this?
Lucy Liu: Well, I got a call form Steve McPherson saying that Cashmere Mafia was most likely not going to come back and that he still wanted to work with me and keep me in the family. I told him that I was a huge fan of Dirty Sexy Money. So then he called these guys over here and we talked on the phone. They were really excited about it too so we sort of came up with this idea to work together on the show. For me it was kind of a really very easy transition because of that, because I had been here before.
Crave Online: Did they create a character just for you?
Lucy Liu: There wasn't a character. They were very open. I mean, creatively, they thought about bringing something onto the show to add a little bit of color, a little chaos, mix it up a bit. Then it sort of was just kismet really how it all turned out.
Crave Online: Why were you such a big fan of the show?
Lucy Liu: I actually was shown the pilot before it came out and I thought it was such a great show. It was so dynamic and obviously I was working on my own show at that time and so busy. Then when I was in Paris, living there, that's when I started talking to these guys about it. So they just sent me what they had. They shot a bunch of episodes that probably won't air but they are things they were sort of thinking about in terms of where they were going with the show. So they sent those to me just to give me an idea of what it was but I had a pretty good idea of what was going on beforehand. So that's why it was really exciting to come and jump on board.