Lucy Liu, "Elementary" director for Season 3, talked shop on "The View."

The actress who plays Dr. Watson on "Elementary" season 3, to Jonny Lee Miller's modern-day Sherlock Holmes, admitted she had some challenges directing Thursday's episode on The View. Liu directed her first episode of "Elementary" last season.

"It's harder for women in general. You have to ask and ask and ask. You have to break the door down. ... and come in with a real belief in what you're doing," Lucy Liu told "The View."

Liu had to juggling acting with the demands of going behind the camera.

"Television is a machine. You jump on to this conveyer belt that is going at a very quick speed, and if you can't keep up you fall off and fall hard," she said.

On the latest episode of the CBS detective drama Elementary, the modern day sleuths have to solve a mystery about pregnant zebras which go missing from the Bronx Zoo. The episode had to be shot on location which was deterred by a surprise snowfall.

"They said it was just going to be some flurries," Liu said on The View. "We could have been in Alaska. The snowflakes were this big."

Snow wasn't the only challenge to the shoot.

"Zebras don't really hang out in the winter because they are warm-weather animals, so we had to actually bring zebras up from the south. ... We had heaters and things for them," Liu admitted.

Besides "Elementary," Liu has appeared on the series "Ally McBeal," which starred Calista Flockhart, and the films "Charlie's Angels" and "Kill Bill."