The actress from groundbreaking Hollywood movie you didn’t realise was in Red Eye cast-Pierra Willix-Entertainment – Metro

Jing Lusi stars in the new ITV thriller Red Eye (Picture: Robert Viglasky/Bad Wolf/Sony Pictures Television)

An actress who featured in the hit Hollywood movie Crazy Rich Asians is starring in new thriller Red Eye.

The six-part ITV series hit screens this week and has picked up plenty of fans who have raced through the offering.

It stars Fool Me Once actor Richard Armitage as doctor Matthew Nolan, who is accused of murdering a woman in Beijing, and immediately gets sent back on the final flight of the day after landing in London.

DC Hana Li, played by Jing Lusi, is there to keep him in check, but initially wants nothing to do with him outside of the job at hand.

However, when passengers start dying on board she realises Nolan’s life is in danger and an international conspiracy is afoot, with the pair then starting to work together to solve the mystery.

The lead actress has been praised by many viewers, one of whom said her performance left them ‘in tears’ by the end while others said she ‘excelled’ in the role.

Who is Jing Lusi?

The actress moved to England from China when she was a child (Picture: Alan Chapman/Dave Benett/Getty Images)

Jing Lusi was born in Pudong, Shanghai, China, and moved with her parents to the United Kingdom at the age of five.

Speaking to Country & Townhouse earlier this year, the actress said she fell in love with Mr Bean when she arrived in England.

‘I came to England in 1991, around the time Mr Bean and his elbow patches arrived on television,’ she recalled.

‘I didn’t speak a word of English then, which was handy as neither did he! Watching Mr Bean, I felt I belonged for the first time. I was in a foreign country, not able to communicate, but this strange funny man is making me laugh. It was profound for a 5-year-old.’

Her first TV role was in Holby City (Picture: CraSH/REX/Shutterstock)

Her family settled in Southampton after her father was granted a scholarship to study a master’s degree at the university.

She studied at Peter Symonds College, Winchester, then read law at University College London.

Although she had early aspirations to pursue a career in the arts, Jing said that as the only child of Asian immigrants acting ‘was not an acceptable option’.

However, after ‘panicking’ following her graduation and being rejected by law firms, she decided to start auditioning.

‘It hurt at the time, but now I see those rejections as a godsend. It forced me to embark on the path of my childhood dream,’ she said.

What have you seen her in before?

She also appeared in the hit movie Crazy Rich Asians (Picture: Dave Benett/Getty Images )

The 38-year-old actress is best known for her roles in Stan Lee’s Lucky Man (2016), the film Crazy Rich Asians (2018), and the BAFTA nominated series Gangs of London (2020).

She has also presented for the BBC documentaries My Chinese New Year (2015) and Chinese New Year: The Biggest Celebration on Earth (2016).

Her first TV role was in the BBC’s BAFTA award-winning medical drama series Holby City.

She made her debut in 2012, playing Tara Lo.

In 2013, she left the cast when her character died during neurosurgery.

She went on to appear as the villainous Lily-Anne Lau in Lucky Man before going on Gangs of London and The Romanoffs.

Red Eye also stars Richard Armitage (Picture: Jonathan Ford/Bad Wolf/Sony Pictures Television)

In films, she has appeared in the 2015 action thriller Survivor, and was in the main cast of Crazy Rich Asians as Amanda Ling, which she said ‘changed everything’.

‘We all knew we were making history during filming. And it opened the floodgates to a catalogue of Asian-led films and television that have been wildly both critically and commercially successful. The Farewell. Searching. Hustlers. Everything Everywhere All at Once. Beef,’ she told 1883 magazine.

She also said working on Red Eye was also a ‘turning point for Asian representation’.

Jing has also performed at Edinburgh Fringe Festival as part of a collective of comedians in Immigrant Diaries; a comedy story telling show aimed to ‘show a different side’ to the heaviness of the topic during the General Election in 2015.

Red Eye is streaming on ITVX.

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