- I definitely always was a performer.

My family has like a running joke

of calling me Havana the musical

because I sort of was dancing and singing

and putting on little one woman productions

by myself ever since I was born.

Hi, I'm Havana Rose Liu and this is On The Rise.

(upbeat music)

I still have a hard time calling myself an actress

I think partially because I'm so new to the craft

and I had never sort of aspired to have this be my career.

I don't know,

I think I have too much imposter syndrome

about sort of feeling like I can't like claim to the title

of what it is to be an actress

and sort of I don't know all what that means,

what the label means.

So I sort of don't call myself that, but I act (laughing).

I have a very supportive family

in terms of following creative endeavors.

I feel really lucky to be able to say that.

And I think especially

during this past sort of like seven months

I've been in and out of limbo of not really having

any of the projects I worked on out in the world.

I have a Sunday family dinner

with my extended family that lives in New York.

They have been very patient with me

and kind with all of my sort of like insecurities

and in the waiting period.

So I have nothing, but sort of thanks for them.

I don't think I ever really like aspired to be an actor

in any capacity, but I do feel as though

sort of everything I have studied up until this point

has sort of perfectly folded into the dough

of being an actor.

I started doing visual arts primarily

and that taught me a lot about the visual medium

and I think composition and symbolism

and then dance also taught me performing in a different way

also stage presence and sort of like also honestly emotion.

So I think in some way I never knew I wanted to act

but all of those different things

and having some level

of deep interest and training in those things

has sort of been a perfect through line

into now realizing that acting is what I wanna do

if I wanna do all those things in one.

My relationship to acting is sort of,

kind of like if you would imagine

like a romantic relationship

is the metaphor I could give for it, which is the...

Like we went on a few dates over the past

like three years and I felt like,

I don't know maybe I was like playing kind of hard to get.

And now I'm like at that phase where

you like kind of can't ignore the elephant in the room

that like maybe you're in love with somebody.

And that's kind of how I feel with acting at this point.

(dramatic music)

(baby screaming)

"No Exit" is a fun,

fast,

flashy,

oh, I'm getting like stressed thinking about it,

but it's I got a young woman named Darby who I play

and she is on route to a family emergency

when she gets caught in a blizzard

and has to stop in a sort of rest stop.

I think I had the most interesting February

because "The Sky Is Everywhere" came out

and "No Exit" came out all within the same month.

And they're two such polar opposite roles.

"The Sky Is Everywhere",

I play a young woman named Bailey who,

it's not a spoiler, dies pretty early on in the film.

And she is essentially

like the embodiment of, I think, light and bravery.

Whereas I think Darby is colored

by maybe more blues, grays greens and purples.

You know, the contrast between those two films

has been like just created a very polar month with such

vast highs and fast lows.

(gentle music)

I definitely don't think of myself as having made it.

I literally just don't even know what that even means.

I think like make what, you know, what is it?

Also I've made things, I've made some movies

I've made some pieces of art, but like,

I don't know making it, I hope to make more things.

I think for me I've had so many beautiful highs

in my career this far,

I feel really lucky to be able to say that.

One particular moment that was really powerful

was when I had the premier for "No Exit"

and it was the first time I had been able to do anything

in person for any of this job.

And it felt like sort of this odd shift

of having this world I had been living in

or this sort of experience I'd been having

had been sort of this internal dialogue with myself

and this well kept secret.

And then it felt like the first time

where I was looking in other people's eyes

and they were looking at me

and we had the same narrative over what my life had been

in the past three years.

And I think that that was a very odd shift

of feeling reality come and meet

this sort of magical ever tumultuous world of filmmaking

that I had been a part of.

I think honestly, one of my biggest role models is like,

I have a number of them,

but really one of them is my grandma on my Chinese side.

I am consistently very touched

and taken aback by how open and supportive

and really just like open-minded I think she is.

And I think she had such an extreme sense of bravery

and immigrating to this country,

and I think that that level of bravery

is something that I try to pull from.

She's also kind of an opera singer.

And I think like her embracing of the arts

and of just sort of every aspect of my life,

my queerness, my choices,

I mean, she sat through this bloody film

and didn't cover her eyes the whole time.

It's just moments like that

that I think she really stands out to me

as somebody to aspire to be like in some way.

So I'd say that she's a role model for me.

My nana, yeah.

(upbeat music)

I think my first celebrity crushes were like animated

because I was young

but I think probably I think Spinelli from "Recess".

I think I thought she was like,

just really cool at the time

I was like, "That's like a cool person.

I wanna be like that person."

And then realized later, like I was probably queer

and then probably Danny Phantom as well

'cause he was so cool, but they're animated people

so I don't know if that counts.

(upbeat music)

I'm currently in a phase of watching a lot of documentaries.

I love films that do so to sort of work reality in some way.

And so I think for me, sometimes I can get a little

ungrounded in being in filmmaking sometimes.

And so for me, documentaries also like are

the real human kernels that we're really building off

of like true human story.

At least that's how I perceive the work.

And so for me, it's been really nice to ground down

into some of those.

But I have been rewatching "Schitt's Creek"

with my little brother.

It's been so fun.

That show, I know it's a comedy and I laugh a lot

but I also like really leap watching "Schitt's Creek".

There's something so touching

about the way that they all grow.

And I don't know, I just find myself like laughing

and like pouring tears.

And so it's been fun to watch with my little brother

cuz he thinks I'm a little bit kooky.

(gentle music)

I think anytime anybody has any kind of platform,

I think that there is like a conscious responsibility

that one needs to have about how to use it

and how to sort of consider what that means.

I think for me right now, that specifically has to do

with the last three years we've had

and my community of Asian Americans really suffering.

Some of the power of media really is that we have found

that representation in media does change

people's perceptions of a whole group of people.

I think it's sort of like,

should be a part of like being a human

to have consciousness over other human beings

and the impact that you have.

And for me, like that responsibility extends outwards.

So every time I do a role

I donate a portion of the proceeds

from that role to an organization that directly relates

to let's say an issue in the film

or an issue that my character faces.

Filmmaking is such a communal act

and in many ways like that community

and collaboration doesn't just exist on set

or sort of within the confines

of who's involved directly with the script

but also the communities that are actually living out

those stories that you're telling.

(gentle music)

If you had told me three years ago that I would be here

I would've like probably,

cowered and like giggled and like run away.

I don't think I would've been able

to conceptualize this for myself at all.

I don't know, I just don't think

that it makes sense for me personally

to ever put a secure image of who I think I wanna be

or sort of what I want my life to look like

and hope that the universe takes me to good places.

(upbeat music)