Stephanie Ann Hsu ( SHOO: born November 25, 1990) is an American actress and singer. She received critical acclaim for her dual role as Joy Wang and Jobu Tupaki in the film Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), which earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Hsu trained at NYU Tisch School of the Arts in Manhattan and began a career in experimental theater before starring on Broadway, originating the roles of Christine Canigula in Be More Chill (2015–2019) and Karen the Computer in SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical (2016–2017). For her performance as Janet Weiss in Richard O'Brien's The Rocky Horror Show (2026), she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. On television, Hsu had recurring roles in the Hulu series The Path (2016–2018) and the Amazon Prime series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2019–2023), for which she won the Actor Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.
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Early life and education
Hsu was born to a single mother in Torrance, California. Her maternal grandmother had moved from Mainland China to Taiwan to escape the Chinese Civil War. As a teenager, her mother moved to the United States for a better education. She attended Palos Verdes Peninsula High School in Rolling Hills Estates, California. She moved to Brooklyn, New York to pursue theater and graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 2012. She also trained with the Atlantic Theater Company in Chelsea, Manhattan.
Career
Stephanie Hsu started as a performer in experimental theater and comedy. From 2013 to 2015, she made regular appearances on the MTV reality comedy series Girl Code. She landed her first recurring television role as Joy Armstrong in the Hulu series The Path. Hsu was called in for the first table reading of The SpongeBob Musical in 2012 to read for Karen, an anthropomorphic computer. She portrayed the character on stage in Chicago in 2016 before making her Broadway debut in 2017.
Hsu originated the main character of Christine Canigula in the first performance of Be More Chill at the regional Two River Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey. She reprised the role in its off-Broadway run at the Pershing Square Signature Center in 2018 and Broadway run at the Lyceum Theatre in 2019. For her performance, she received Lucille Lortel and Drama Desk Award nominations.
In 2019, Hsu joined the recurring cast of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, an Amazon Prime series for its third season as Mei Lin. She and the rest of the cast won the 2020 SAG Award for Best Ensemble in a Comedy Series. She starred in the 2020 independent film Asking for It. Her breakthrough role came in 2022 when Hsu co-starred as Joy Wang, the depressed daughter of Michelle Yeoh's character, and as the nihilistic antagonist Jobu Tupaki in A24's Everything Everywhere All at Once., an absurdist comedy drama film. It opened at the 2022 South by Southwest (SXSW) to acclaim, and Hsu's performance was lauded by critics and audiences. She received the Independent Spirit Award for Best Breakthrough Performance and nominations for the Critics' Choice Award, the Screen Actors Guild Award, and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In June 2023, she was invited to join the Academy as an actor.
Hsu guest starred in the "Escape from Shit Mountain" episode of the first season of the Peacock series Poker Face, which was released in 2023. Later in 2023, she starred in Adele Lim's film Joy Ride. She appeared in an episode of the Disney+ series American Born Chinese, reuniting with fellow Everything Everywhere All at Once costars Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and James Hong.
Personal life
Hsu is queer.
