Prior to entering the acting industry, Lau was a fashion designer and stylist. She obtained a degree in Fashion Design from Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1982, and a further degree in Fashion Technology from the American Fashion Institute in Paris, France in 1985. In 1997, Lau took an Improvisation Course at London's Holborn Arts Center.
Lau has acting and modeling experience in fashion, film, and television. In addition to her role in The Phantom Menace, she has appeared in The Fifth Element (1997), Lost In Space (1998), Guy Ritchie's Revolver (2005) and in the BBC television drama A for Andromeda (2006). Lau later went on to feature in a four-week long fashion spread for mature models in The Guardian newspaper in 2006 and to appear on the front cover of Prudential magazine. In 2009, she was in the U.K.'s National Express Campaign and appeared in images at bus stops throughout the country.