Lien's first television appearance was in a bubble gum commercial playing twins. Her first appearance on a television series was as a music academy student in a 1990 episode of "Brewster Place", starring Oprah Winfrey. The same year she provided her voice for the dubbed English language version of "Baby Blood", a French horror film. Lien moved to New York in 1991 after she was cast as Hannah Moore on the soap opera "Another World". She attended and graduated from the Professional Children's School while working on this series.