Nice Girls Posts

Thursday Three with Constance Wu

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May is Asian Pacific American Heritage month, so we’re spotlighting some of our favorite women on TV with that heritage. You can read all the entries in the series here.

Constance Wu was born in Richmond, Virginia, the third of four daughters to parents who immigrated from Taiwan. Education was clearly important in her family – although her grandparents did not have access to education and couldn’t read or write, Constance’s father was a biology and genetics professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and her mother was a computer programmer.

Constance herself graduated from State University of New York at Purchase’s Conservatory of Theatre Arts with a bachelor of fine arts in acting in 2005. After college, she studied psycholinguistics and almost attended a graduate degree program in speech pathology at Columbia University.

But acting was her passion, and in 2006 she made her screen debut with a supporting role in the independent film Stephanie Daley (aka What She Knew). The movie won a Sundance award for the script and star Amber Tamblyn was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. 

Fresh Off the Boat

Fresh Off the Boat

Constance is probably best known for her role as Jessica Huang – wife, mother, house flipper, detective novelist – in this ABC sitcom set in the 1990s. Every week she gives us a sharp portrayal of a Taiwanese immigrant working to realize the American dream for her family in the suburbs of Orlando. Jessica is no-nonsense, pragmatic, and sometimes pretty harsh, but Constance balances those characteristics by showing us that everything Jessica does is out of love for her family.

Constance Wu - EastSiders

EastSiders

In this web-series-turned-Netflix-series, Constance plays Kathy, a woman with notoriously short relationships who lives next door to Cal, her best friend from college, and his boyfriend, Thom. Over the course of three seasons, Kathy deals with a whoooole lot of drama, both her own and Cal’s.

Constance Wu - Crazy Rich Asians

Crazy Rich Asians

From an award-winning independent movie to successful streaming series to a hit sitcom, Constance has been steadily building an outstanding career. And it’s about to go supernova: in August, Constance stars in Crazy Rich Asians. Based on the book trilogy by Kevin Kwan, CRA is a romantic comedy about a woman (Constance) who falls for a man who turns out to be “the Prince Harry of China”. The books were amazing and so far the movie looks fantastic. If CRA is as big of a hit as expected, get ready to see a lot more of Constance Wu!

Follow Constance on Twitter and Instagram.

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