Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Simu Liu

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Canadian actor Simu Liu.
Last updated on November 3, 2024.
Simu Liu

Simu Liu is a Canadian actor, author, and stuntman. He is known for portraying Shang-Chi in the 2021 Marvel Cinematic Universe film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. He also played Jung Kim in the CBC Television sitcom Kim's Convenience and received nominations at the ACTRA Awards and Canadian Screen Awards for his work in Blood and Water. In 2022, Liu authored the memoir We Were Dreamers and was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world.

What I've always really appreciated about MCU superheroes versus elsewhere is that they are trying to disrupt the idea of what a superhero can be.
I've always just been such a big fan of the MCU and anything Marvel, really.
The most important thing is to show up. You've just got to get your butt out there. — © Simu Liu
The most important thing is to show up. You've just got to get your butt out there.
There is a reason why kung fu caught fire and the world became obsessed with it, because it's incredible to watch.
The main character is always, you know, this blond-haired, blue-eyed guy who's the high school quarterback or the star of the basketball team. That's all I wanted to be, really, truly. I definitely was not that.
There is something missing in Asian America. They're missing people to tell them, 'It's okay to be who you are - you belong. Just be unapologetically you; you're not less than anybody else.'
It's hard enough to celebrate being Asian in normal times. But now, when the whole world is kind of coming down, with all this rhetoric and people getting attacked on the street, you really need to deliberately try to celebrate Asian-ness.
So when we were building that superhero workout, that Marvel body, it was really important for us not to sacrifice range of motion and explosiveness, because I've still got to be able to throw a punch at the end of the day.
Kim's' is one of the most unique shows to hit the air, with its focus on individual and communal growth, family, and most importantly: immigrant culture.
The immigrant experience is rarely depicted in mainstream media in a positive light, and for that very reason, 'Kim's Convenience' has a very special place in the hearts of countless fans globally - including mine.
You're talking to a guy that graduated from business school by the skin of his teeth, only to crash and burn at his first consulting job. What about that C.V. makes me a good representative of Asian Americans and Canadians?
Obviously, learning the martial arts is a big part of my training, but the other part of being a Marvel superhero is, well, looking like a superhero.
I got into this business when I was 22 years old, and I didn't have a woke bone in my body. And all I wanted to do was be on screen and for people to pay attention to me, but we evolve and our cause evolves and the conversations today are certainly very different.
The truth is that Asian people have been targeted and discriminated against for far, far longer than COVID has been around.
Kim's' gave me my first opportunity to portray an Asian character with significant story arcs and subtleties that most Western Asian actors can only dream of. The show was integral in allowing me to find my voice and shape the perspective and platform that I now have.
I am that person that struggled with my identity my whole life. — © Simu Liu
I am that person that struggled with my identity my whole life.
You know, it's not every day that you get to lead an MCU movie.
Hawkeye is the best 'Avenger' because he does not rely on superpowers or extraordinary abilities.
All around me, I saw people who were taught by their parents, as I was, to just toe the line, not ruffle the feathers, not rock the boat too much and just put your head down, do your work and that's it. And I think that as a community, we're reaching the limitations of that kind of thinking.
My dad is amazing. He has, like, ancient Chinese skills.
Just because there's one Asian American superhero in the MCU, it does not by any means imply that our fight is finished right there.
Things like 'following your passion' and 'finding your creative outlets' didn't mean anything to me because I didn't have that area of my brain.
When I was 16 years old, I thought that backflips were like the coolest thing. So I spent like months and months of my life like, literally flipping onto my head.
I auditioned for 'Crazy Rich Asians' four times and it was very, very hard for me to not get it, because it was like, these 'Crazy Rich Asians' people were the cool kids and I was the one being left out.
I would do background and extra stuff, I would do student films, I just found every opportunity I could to be on set, and after awhile I accumulated enough work to get an agent.
I tend to spend way more time than I should on social media.
As an Asian man in the industry, you had to know martial arts.
I'm Asian-Canadian.
If I just track Shang-Chi's journey in the context of table tennis in my life, it actually fits perfectly, and that's why I was able to sink into the character so, so seamlessly.
I might be tweeting a lot of things in the future, some of which will be absolute idiocy.
I am that person that's always felt like he wasn't enough.
When I was like 22 years old, I wrote this bible for a Sunfire series. So, Sunfire is actually one of the members of the first X-Men team, and he's a Japanese mutant who got his powers from a young age and grew up in an environment raised by his uncle to hate America.
You know, 'Hunt for the Wilderpeople' was a great movie that I thoroughly enjoyed.
I remember doing 5th grade math when I was like seven years old. My parents just constantly pushed me, in a good way, to always demand excellence in everything that I did.
I was a dress-up Spider-Man for kids' birthday parties for a while.
If it's true that I wouldn't have had a career if it weren't for these conversations about diversity, the importance of representation, then I need to continue to fight that battle for the people that come after me.
There was a cute girl on the crew that I was trying to impress during a very elaborate stunt. I winked at her and, when I started running, proceeded to lose my balance, fall, banged my knee, and ended up sprawled out 12 feet in the air.
We saw David Carradine, who is not of Asian descent, playing an Asian man on the show 'Kung Fu' that originally should have, and was developed for, Bruce Lee. To have that be the legacy that quote-unquote inspired 'Shang-Chi' in the beginning obviously doesn't put us off to a great start.
All of the cultural nuances and the traumas and the complexities that come with being a third-culture kid, these are all nuances that the quote-unquote system of Hollywood is just starting to become privy to.
I grew up loving Jackie Chan and Jet Li and certainly Bruce Lee. But as I got older, I started to question: Is that all we have? — © Simu Liu
I grew up loving Jackie Chan and Jet Li and certainly Bruce Lee. But as I got older, I started to question: Is that all we have?
To fully understand the roots of anti-Asian prejudice in America, you need to know about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that banned all immigration from China, even though it was Chinese immigrants that had essentially built America's railroad system.
Yeah, I went to business school and I actually worked as an accountant for about eight months. It's not what I wanted, but it was definitely a move to appease the parents.
Anti-Asian racism is very real, and it will not be solved with an opulent rom-com or Marvel superhero, but with you - the bystanders - acknowledging the validity of our pain.
I've always had a bit of delusional confidence.
I'd just woken up from a nap, it was around 6:30 in the evening. I was eating some shrimp crackers at my desk. Then I get a call from an unknown number in Burbank, California and my heart immediately skips a beat because I know the Disney home office is in Burbank.
As an actor of color, I was overlooked at every possible opportunity. I was given roles that were almost not roles. It was, like, Scared Asian Guy. Whether I was a scared Asian guy in front of a computer or a scared Asian guy getting robbed in the grocery store, I always played these pathetic, low-status characters.
I studied finance and accounting in college, and I worked at a massive accounting firm out of graduation.
I'm a big Taika fan, even before he did 'Ragnarok.'
What needs to change, really, is that we need better representation behind the camera. We need better representation among the people who tell the stories or the people who greenlight the movies.
My parents were electrical engineers, immigrants from China, and we were always just in a state of struggle, building our life.
Every community should have a superhero. And the truth is, for many of us in the Asian community, we didn't grow up with that. — © Simu Liu
Every community should have a superhero. And the truth is, for many of us in the Asian community, we didn't grow up with that.
We have a lot of heroes. We have Asian heroes, we have Asian American heroes, men, women, of all ages, and not all of them do martial arts. But that doesn't mean that they don't have their own arcs, their own stories, their own subtleties and nuances. And I think that's what's important.
When the world is telling us, 'We hate you because you're Asian, we hate you because we think you brought this virus to the world'... we need to kind of meet that with an equal and opposing force.
My parents are two academics that came to Canada to pursue academic opportunities.
We didn't grow up in any sort of meaningful representation in media apart from, you know, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Bruce Lee. But, of course, that was different still, because it always played to this narrative of the foreigner from the East.
I'm outing myself as a huge comic book nerd.
I spent the better part of my young life searching for people's approval and validation, and not getting any of it.
I've seen cashiers, servers, transit operators, bank tellers and customs officers speak much too quickly on purpose as if it pained them to have to spend another second of their lives conversing with my parents.
It was an extreme pleasure to be a part of the MCU, and if and when the call comes for me to return to the universe, I will be more than ready.
I realized, if I don't step into the spotlight, and the person next to me doesn't step in, and the people around me don't step in, then who will?
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