Lucy Liu

Though she made her television debut in 1991 as Courtney, the Peach Pit waitress on Beverly Hills 90210, it wasn't until 1998 that Liu's career really took off as the brash, in-your-face lawyer Ling Woo on the hit TV show Ally McBeal. Like most of the characters she plays, Liu exudes confidence, independence, and intelligence. She graduated from New York City's prestigious Stuyvesant High School and later earned a degree in Asian languages and cultures from University of Michigan. Other roles include Jerry Maguire (1996), Payback (1999) and Shanghai Noon (2000). Also in 2000, she was able to show off her proficient martial arts skills as Alex in the major motion picture hit, Charlie's Angels and it's less successful sequel Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. She plays one of the would-be assassins of Uma Thurman in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Vol. I (2003) and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004). Liu has been busy, with three films out in 2006: Lucky Number Slevin, The Cleaner, and Rise.