Biography - Alice Wu

Who is Alice Wu?

Alice Wu is a film director, screenwriter by profession, and American by nationality. Chinese by ethnicity, she is well known for her work in the films Saving Face and The Half of It. 

Alice Wu – Age, Parents, Siblings

Alice Wu was born on April 21, 1970, in San Jose, California, USA. Her birth name is Alice Wei Wu. Her parents were who were immigrants from Taiwan and had eventually settled in San Jose.  

Other details of Wu’s early life including the name of her mother, father, and siblings are not known.

Education, Ethnicity

For education Alice Wu attended Los Altos High School, graduating at the age of 16. She went on to earn a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1990 and a master's degree in Computer Science from Stanford in 1992. 

Her ethnicity is Chinese.

Alice Wu – Sexuality, Girlfriend, Relationship

Alice Wu’s sexuality is lesbian. She realized this while taking a gender studies class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and had come out to her mom. For years this led to a strained relationship with her mother.

The filmmaker has yet to introduce her girlfriend to the public. As she loves to maintain her privacy, not much is known about her past relationships. She is currently believed to be single.

Alice Wu – Career

Early years

After completing her education, Alice Wu worked as a software engineer for Microsoft in Seattle. Meanwhile, she began writing a novel and eventually signed up for a 12-week screenwriting class at the University of Washington. She then left her job at Microsoft in the late 1990s and moved to New York City to pursue a career in filmmaking full-time.

Films

Having left Microsoft, she gave herself a five-year window to turn the script for her first feature film Saving Face into a film. The film was released in 2005 and was produced by Will Smith. It was in fact inspired by her own experiences coming out as a lesbian in the Chinese-American community and also explores relationships between mothers and daughters in the Chinese-American community.

Saving Face has been influential within both lesbian and Chinese-American communities. 

Alice Wu then worked with the film Foreign Babes in Beijing: Behind the Scenes of a New China but did not make it past pre-production. She is the writer, director, and producer of her latest film Netflix’s The Half of It.

Cast

In The Half of It, Alice Wu has cast Leah Lewis, Daniel Diemer, Alexxis Lemire, Enrique Murciano, and Becky Ann Baker.

Alice Wu – Awards, Nominations

Wu won the Visionary award at the San Diego Asian Film Festival and was nominated for the Gotham Independent Film Awards and GLAAD Media Awards (2006).

Alice Wu – Net Worth, Salary

Her net worth is estimated to be around $1.5 million while the figure for her annual salary is not known.

Alice Wu – Instagram, Twitter, Facebook

On social media handles such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, Alice Wu is followed by thousands of followers and counting.