"Fresh off the Boat" stars Randall Park as Louis Huang, Constance Wu as Jessica Huang, Hudson Yang as Eddie Huang, Forrest Wheeler as Emery Huang and Ian Chen as Evan Huang. (Photo : Getty Images/Image Group LA/ABC)
Known for his role as Jessica Huang in the TV series "Fresh off the Boat," Constance Wu, 33, is one of the celebrities who reacted negatively to Chris Rock's controversial Asian jokes at the Academy Awards 2016. The Taiwanese-American actress took to Twitter to express her dismay.
To parade little kids on stage w/no speaking lines merely to be the butt of a racist joke is reductive & gross. Antithesis of progress.
— Constance Wu (@ConstanceWu) February 29, 2016
Rock came under fire after bringing in three Asian children onstage in a skit at the Academy Awards 2016 and introduced them as PriceWaterhouseCoopers bankers named Ming Zhu, Bao Ling and David Moskowitz. He even said, "If anybody's upset about that joke, just tweet about it on your phone that was also made by these kids."
Born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, in a Taiwanese family, Wu started performing in a local theater since she was in high school. Her parents are immigrants from Taipei City, Taiwan.
The first film Wu starred in was "Stephanie Daley," which premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, while the most recent one was Daniel Yoon's 2015 comedy drama movie "Low Budget Ethnic Movie." On the small screen, she has appeared in several TV series, including "Torchwood," "EastSiders" and "Covert Affairs," before playing the mother of Eddie Huang (Hudson Yang), Emery Huang (Forrest Wheeler) and Evan Huang (Ian Chen) and wife of Louis Huang (Randall Park) in "Fresh off the Boat."
Almost two weeks before the Academy Awards 2016, Wu discussed how her Asian-American identity influences her acting career when she was invited to speak at the University of Southern California. The event was titled "Keeping it Fresh: A Conversation with Constance Wu."
"When asked why we don't have more Asian movie stars, the common answer is that there's no Asian actors who have an established box office revenue," Occidental Weekly quoted Wu as saying. "But there's a lot of coming-of-age, teenage movies that star people who are also not box office-established."
Wu is set to star in an independent drama film titled "You and Me Both," which is Jennifer Cho Suhr's first feature film, according to Variety. The Taiwanese-American actress will play a struggling addict who goes on a road trip from Iowa to Alaska with her estranged sister to find their birth mother.
Watch Wu talk about the real-life Jessica Huang, the inspiration of her "Fresh off the Boat" character, on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" here:
