Biografia
Joyce Liu-Countryman is an American producer and actress. As producer, her credits include feature film, music video and shorts that have played on screens around the country and across the world. As an actress, her appearances on stage and in film, television and commercials have garnered her awards and nominations.
She was born and raised in San Francisco, California to her engineer father and real estate agent mother. Just to be the black sheep of the family, she turned down admissions to UC Berkeley, her father and brother's Alma Mater, to head to Los Angeles where she attended UCLA and she graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor's degree in psychology and anthropology.
At UCLA, she discovered a love for the performing arts while taking an introduction to acting class in the School of Theater. She performed as a part of the Asian American-themed HereAndNow sketch ensemble and had her first real stage experience with a one-line role in the UCLA-East West Players' joint show, "12-1-A." She went on to pursue graduate studies in clinical psychology in hopes of earning the title of "doctor" that was expected from her family. Joyce earned a Master of Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and continued 3 additional years of doctoral studies at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. She ultimately decided not to continue to a Ph.D., but did meet her husband at UH after unintentional matchmaking by her academic mentor.
Realizing that clinical psychology was not her ultimate calling, she left UH to pursue a career in human resources. Along the way, she rediscovered her love of the arts and continued her acting pursuits. While attending the Joanne Baron/D.W. Brown Studio, she attended an open casting call for "I Wanna Be a Soap Star" just to keep her classmate company during his audition. She was plucked out of the thousands of actors auditioning to be one of the 10 cast in Season 4 of the show.
With the birth of her son, she realized that her skills were better used behind the camera, producing her first feature film, "Eat With Me," with her producing partner and long time friend from UW, David Au. The film premiered at the 2014 Los Angeles Film Festival and went on screen at festivals around the world, win several awards, and pick up distribution domestically and internationally. In 2016, Joyce returned to school to hone her producing skills by attending the prestigious American Film Institute Conservatory. She graduated in 2018 with an MFA in producing.
Joyce continues to produce narrative films and periodically act. Before attending film school, she performed in the lead role of "Xi Yan" in a San Francisco Regional production of David Henry Hwang's "Chinglish," earning a nomination for Best Actress from the Theater Bay Area Awards.
Joyce focuses on producing content that expands the representation of diverse characters and stories on screen, and believes that media can be a powerful vehicle for positive social change.
