Julie Tao was born in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. She and her younger sister, Joyce, were raised by a single mother who immigrated to Canada from Taiwan. Her father immigrated to Canada from Shanghai, China. When she was 5 years old, she liked to reenact Cinderella and as soon as she could write, she began to write and draw books using scrap paper. When she first got her own personal computer at age 11, she used it to write a series of novels. Due to her love of creating characters, she decided to pursue a professional acting career when she was 12. She secured herself an agent and took acting classes while in school.

In 2020, she made her feature film debut in To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You (2020) as Haven.