For Poppy Liu, Being an Asian Actor in a Jane Austen Story Was a "Dream Come True"
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Apple TV+'s hit murder mystery, The Afterparty, returned this week with its second season, which focuses an entirely new crime. Set at a wedding, everyone is hiding something—including the seemingly happy couple. So when the groom, Edgar (Zach Woods), turns up dead, fingers begin pointing. The first person accused? None other than the bride, Grace, played by Poppy Liu.
The actor, who has previously appeared in Hacks, Dead Ringers, and American Born Chinese, relished the opportunity to appear in a comedic murder mystery. "Leading up to my meeting with [Afterparty creators], they sent me the first three scripts," Liu recalls. "I was reading it to do my like due diligence, to have questions about the character, but I ended up just kind of binge reading it 'cause I was like, 'Oh my God, what?! Who did what? Who betrayed who?' I just got so into the world that I thought, if I am this excited about what's happening as a reader, it's gonna be so fun being in it as an actor."
Like last season, each episode will tell the story of the wedding from a different character's point of view, in a different genre. Grace's perspective, which comes in the form of a Jane Austen-esque romantic Regency period drama, is the second one that viewers see. For Liu, the chance to step into this world as a Chinese-American actor was a "dream."
Below, Liu chats with Town & Country all about their character, Grace, filming the season while pregnant, and the power of seeing an Asian family in a period drama.
What do you think the wedding evoked for Grace?
She has a lot of inner turmoil around whether or not she's doing the right thing, whether or not this is the right person for her. She has a tremendous amount of guilt because of a secret that she holds onto. Weddings already bring out a lot of intense feelings, and for her, she has an extra layer of anxiety and an existential life crises. She's super on edge from the very beginning, even before murder happens, and then a murder does happen.
What was it like telling Grace's story through the lens of a Jane Austen world?
It was so dreamy. Even if it hadn't been written already as Jane Austen, I would've requested that because it's such a dream. To have our entire intergenerational Asian family in period garb cosplaying in this Jane Austen world was such a dream—that I didn't even know I had, or was able to dream of!
The Jane Austen world has such clear class distinctions, which I think was a really apt way to highlight the differences between Edgar's family and Grace's family. There's inherent built-in romance; the driving vehicle of any Jane Austen story is love. It's unrequited love, it's forbidden love, it's obstacles to get love. It's disdain and betrayal and finding your way, in a circular way, to come back to love again. Grace being such a romantic, it was a perfect backdrop to explore love and family feud.
As an actor, what was it like to go through all the genres this season? How did you balance it?
It's a little bit of whiplash at times, and disorienting in that you have to place a lot of trust in the creators. I've been describing it as a trust fall. I'm the kind of actor where my script is so marked up—I wanna know exactly where everything is, I'm very meticulous about my script work.
When we started this, I had all the scripts printed out and I was marking everything. But then, around two weeks in. I remember me and Anna [Konkle, who plays Hannah] were sitting in the cast area really trying to figure what the scene was, where it fit in, and how it was different from the previous one. It felt like we were doing like a complex math equation! It was just so confusing that at a certain point, we were like, I think the creators can see a bigger picture to this than we can.
Part of what makes this show work is that we have to be blinders on in the moment, just trusting that like the puzzle pieces will all come together. It's humbling to remember that at its core, in acting, you have to say yes to the thing, and just be like, yes, this is the reality. This is the world, because you've said it is, cause the script says it is, and therefore I will play it.
Are you a murder mystery fan?
As I've gotten older, I've become more and more of a wimp. I really struggle watching anything scary, which is why this is great that it's a murder mystery comedy. I've legitimately read scripts before where I had to turn down the project cause I was like, I think I'm too scared. I got too scared reading the script! I have nightmares. At a previous time in my life, I would really mess around with like a true crime podcast, or a documentary. As a culture, we love to freak ourselves out. I don't know what it is. Maybe we're all a little masochistic. Maybe this will change and maybe it comes in waves, a love for crime and murder. I also just had a baby, so I think it's a hormones thing. I'm too vulnerable and fragile right now. Let me hear uplifting news, let me see a love story! I know it's a hard, cruel world, but I don't wanna face that right now. I wanna protect my baby.
Did becoming a a parent make you reflect differently on Grace's relationship with her mom Vivian on the show?
I have such a close relationship with my mom, so I had so much to draw on already. The fact that I was pregnant during the show, too, and my mom doesn't live in L.A., so I didn't get to see her a lot during that time, but Vivian [Wu, who plays her mom Vivian] became this surrogate Chinese mom figure for me.
She was very attentive, in the way that a Chinese mother's love language is so specific and unique. I really got that from Vivian, a lot. On a given day I would be so hormonal or I would be so emotional, it was really grounding and humanizing to be able to talk to Vivian and even Elizabeth [Perkins, who plays Isabel] To have women of an older generation who were like, 'We get it. We got you. You'll be good.' I just really appreciated Vivian.
I can't believe you were filming while so pregnant. I couldn't tell at all from any of the episodes!
Thanks to VFX [visual effects]! Jane Austen [episode two] was one of the last blocks that we did, so I was almost seven months pregnant. Chris Miller said they did have to VFX my belly out of at least 100 shots, especially near the end.
The first two episodes of The Afterparty season two are now streaming on Apple TV+. Shop Now
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