Actor - Writer - Producer - ME/CFS - Pre-Med
About Me
Hi! I'm Lili, an actor, creator, and comedian. I'm an LA native (go Lakers!), and I love learning languages and sword-fighting-- I speak Spanish, some Mandarin, and a bit of Klingon. I'm a nerd-jock hybrid, for sure.
I love the intersection of media and storytelling so much that I wrote a Master's thesis on it-- "Entertainment-Education and Narrative Persuasion in the Context of the Culture Cycle and Communication Theories." (My advisor called it "an excellent paper." I could hardly get a word in edgewise.) If that title didn't hook you, tldr: I believe in media and art as forms for making change in the world with stories. (And the academic literature supports that!). I also wrote a paper on the complexities of comedy in Family Guy.
II've always been an athlete, and loved all of the sports I played (which was quite a few!). In high school, I was a three-season athlete; I played varsity volleyball, basketball, and lacrosse. In basketball, I eventually became team captain and MVP, and in my senior year lacrosse season I was an Academic All-American and League MVP. Every sport is fun with the right people! In college, I played Club Basketball, started powerlifting, and even joined the Quidditch team (and we went to the regional playoffs!). I've always valued being part of a team, and do my best work when it's with a great squad.
I have always been a musician-- playing the piano since I was little, and joining the chamber orchestra in high school (with the violin). I also taught myself how to play the flute in middle school and am learning how to play the ukulele during the pandemic. I'm currently trying to figure out how to start my one person band, "Weekend the Knees."
During my last year at Stanford University, I began to battle ME/CFS and this year was selected to join the Solve M.E. Community Advisory Council, getting a chance to volunteer with one of the organizations on the forefront of creating change for our community.
Since returning to LA, I fell in love with the other parts of production as well. Currently, I am working on a sci-fi dramedy webseries, developed with the talented Lillian Bornstein, Keep in Touch (2021).
Keep in Touch
This sci-fi web series started out as a joke between me and Lillian Bornstein.
9 months later, and it's not so funny anymore-- we've created a future world full of new technologies (including dextral biotech, a.k.a. our beloved handphones) and developed a storyline that we love. We created our LillixLili production company. And we still laugh all the time.
In our first season, we explore our characters and the strength of their friendship, as well as an exploration of what happens when you question the norms of your society, instead of just following along. The first episode was released May 27, and we are so proud of every one. We joke about how we thought it was complicated in the beginning, and then we just had to make every episode more and more difficult.
I really believe in the power of storytelling, especially with the low-budget sci-fi genre. I always think of Star Trek: The Original Series, and without much SFX and CGI, they created a starship environment and convincing alien world each week, full of technologies that were innovative and predictive of the future, in their time. You never saw such dedication as when other life forms take over their bodies, alien technology is used to control them, or they switch characters among the chief officers. Overall, the effect of that level of commitment (at every level) is a timeless series that contains storylines that challenge prejudice and force you to consider the world we live in.
Check out Keep in Touch here:
