Vivian Wu, born as Wu Jun Mei to a movie family in Shanghai, is a Chinese actress and producer. She is the great granddaughter of the Chinese "Tobacco King" Wu Tingsheng while her mother is a well known actress Zhu Man Fang. At aged 16 in 1983, she made her debut appearance in the movie "Forever Young".
After graduating from Hawaii Pacific University in 1987, she settled in the United States. In the same year, she was talent scouted by Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci to play Puyi’s young concubine Wenxiu in the movie "The Last Emperor". She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Italian Film Festival, and began to gain international popularity and became a successor to Chen Chong, thus being the third Chinese actress to successfully break into Hollywood.
Wu was selected as "one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world" by the American "People" magazine.
In 1993, she participated in the film "The Gone Daughter" directed by Oscar Luis Costo, whom she married in 1996.
Over the years, she has won several awards such as "Actor of the Highest Honor at the 1998 American Independent Film Spirit Awards"; "Sexist Chinese Actress at the 2000 Asian Performing Arts Dynamics A Magazine"; "Best Supporting Actress at the 2007 Academy Awards"; "2010 Inspirational Women of the World"; "2011 Successful Women Award"; "2011 Youku Best Actress"; "2014 Outstanding Overseas Chinese Actress" for court film "Nanping Hongli"; "Best Supporting Actress at the 2015 Chinese American Film Festival" for "The Queens"; "Most Popular Actress Award 2017 at the 11th Paris Chinese Film Festival" for the movie "Youth Dinner"; and "Best Supporting Actress Award at the 2018 China-US TV Festival" for the drama "Always With You".