Fresh Air - Actor Simu Liu On Diving In The Dark

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

In 2012, three deep-sea divers were on a routine dive in the North Sea when one of the divers became trapped underwater. The harrowing story of that rescue is the plot of the movie Last Breath. Actor Simu Liu had to scuba dive in dark depths for his role, which was largely shot underwater. He spoke with producer and interview contributor Ann Marie Baldonado about playing a Ken in Barbie, his early childhood in China, and the perils of being a stock photo model. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get special behind-the-scenes content, producer recommendations, and gems from the archive. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Our guest today is actor Simu Liu. He's best known for his breakout role as Shang-Chi, Marvel's first Asian superhero in the film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Now he stars with Woody Harrelson in the new film Last Breath. He spoke with Fresh Air's Anne-Marie Boldenado. Actor Simu Liu has taken on some roles that are pretty physically challenging. He does killer fight sequences in the film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,

and who can forget him dancing as one of the Kens in the movie Barbie? His latest film may be even more extreme. The action thriller Last Breath is based on the true story of deep sea divers in peril at the bottom of the North Sea. In 2012, three divers were embarking on a routine dive when rough weather and computer errors caused one diver's umbilical cable to get stuck, leaving him trapped. crapped. something for me, okay? You have to get yourself back to the top of the manifold. I can't rescue you if I can't find you. Understand?"

That's Simu Liu, with Finn Cole as the diver who stuck with only minutes of reserve oxygen left. Simu Liu's character with another diver, played by Woody Harrelson, desperately tried to bring the trapped diver back to safety. Simu Liu's first big break was in the CBC Netflix comedy, Kim's Convenience, which ran for five seasons. He says being fired from his accounting job is what helped him take the leap into acting.

His best-selling memoir, We Were Dreamers, an immigrant superhero origin story, explores his family's immigration to Canada, his struggles growing up with immigrant parents, the challenges of breaking into the industry, and of being an Asian Canadian in Hollywood. Simu Liu, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you so much for having me. This new movie, Last Breath, is about saturation divers. Can you explain what saturation divers do?

It's a very blue collar job. It's very dangerous. It's workers that work on the bottom of the sea and the bottom of the ocean performing, you know, kind of routine maintenance and repair on pipelines, on, you know, underwater structures. It's typically extremely dark. There's not a lot of visibility. And the living conditions of these saturation divers

is just so, it's unlike anything, I think, that is really out there in the world, except for maybe like an astronaut living in space. So, in order for those divers to be able to operate that far beneath sea level, you know, because of the differential and atmospheric pressure, they actually have to live in a pressurized kind of tube on board a ship for 28 days. And during that time, typically it's three divers that go into sat together in one chamber, but they're living kind of on top of each other.

The chamber is very, very small. You know, you're typically going to the bathroom like less than three feet away from where you're sleeping. For a month. For a month straight, yeah, with the same two other guys. And when it's time to go to work, you all go into this, like, little sphere, this bell structure, but it's lowered down to depth, at which point the divers then come out, they're hooked up to the bell and then, you know, to the surface of the ship through an umbilical that feeds them all of their gas and their heat

and their power. And then they Conduct these operations on the bottom of the sea for eight hour shifts at a time. So it's like a really There's nothing glamorous about this job And yet, you know There were many sat divers that were available to us over the course of shooting this movie and some of them were the actual Characters that we played in the movie But the one thing that we found in common with all of them

is just how much they loved it, which was very confusing to us. Well, right, saturation diving. It's one of the most dangerous jobs out there. These divers go down to the bottom of the ocean, they repair oil rigs and gas pipes, and it's to provide the infrastructure of the way people live their lives.

And your character, David Yuasa, is based on a real diver, just like you said, it's based on a real diver who made this rescue. You talk to him. It occurs to me it might be the first time you're playing a real living person. What was that like? What did you learn from him?

To have someone have done something as extraordinary as Dave did. And he doesn't care for any of the accolades, he doesn't care for any of the recognition when, you know, he's like the closest thing to a real superhero that there is. He threw himself into the bottom of the sea to rescue his coworker who had been trapped there. So he, you know, wound up finding an unconscious Chris Lemons on the bottom of the North Sea, clipped Chris onto him,

and then climbed his umbilical back up to the bell, which is about, you know, it's like more than 50 foot climb, you know, in the swell, in the sea, which was very turbulent at the time, and successfully recovered him and then revived him. Like, that's incredible. That's a miracle.

Yeah, he was essentially doing like that what people do in gym class, like climbing the rope. And he has his coworker whose life he's trying to save, and it's just like the most high stakes rope climb you could ever imagine. Yeah, that's right. And sad equipment, you know, it's just like the most high stakes road climb you could ever imagine. Yeah, that's right. And sad equipment, you know, it's not light. You know, you've got like a 50 pound helmet, right, that you have to, that you're wearing.

And then you've got, you know, your bailout oxygen, which is at least another, you know, 30 pounds. And then you've got weights in your shoes because, you know, of course they're not fins. You're not like recreationally diving. You have to have, you know, of course, they're not fins. You're not, like, recreationally diving. Um, you have to have, you know, be boots on the ground and-and to be able to conduct your work. So, yeah, just, uh, it's a lot of weight.

What was this shoot like? Were you shooting in extreme conditions? Because you play one of these divers who's at the bottom of the North Sea. As you've described, you know, you're in this little tin can kind of isolated, even when there isn't a crisis, it's this isolated environment. Did you shoot that way? It was pretty evident, you know, reading the script the first time that it wasn't going to be a cakewalk. You know, we knew that we were going to have to do a significant portion of this film underwater

and or in these really, really tight spaces. It was like three, four weeks of kind of diving every day, pretty much starting from square one, learning kind of not only the basics of scuba and then getting quite proficient at that, but then also at some point unlearning a lot of the recreational scuba diving kind of mantras and philosophies and then relearning them in a set capacity. Because again, the equipment is very different. what you're trying to do is very different and And and then you know we had an incredible dive team around us that supported us and really kind of made us feel safe every day But that being said we had a tank in Malta that was about 40 feet deep and For you know every night, we'd go down into the water

and we'd communicate ahead of time exactly the shots that we wanted to get. And in a way, obviously challenging, but in a way it was really nice to be able to immerse ourselves to that degree, especially in a world where I feel like in this industry, it's become increasingly easy to lie to the audience. You know, you've got green screen, you've got VFX, you've now got AI, you know, making it very easy

for actors to not really have to do anything or to exist in very comfortable situations. And I think in that environment, it was really nice for us to actually go out and do it. I want to ask about the movie Barbie, and I was shocked when I realized that it's only been a year since you perform the song, I'm Just Ken with Ryan Gosling and the other Ken's at the Oscar ceremony. That was just a year ago. I just want to remind people to go back and watch it if they want to experience joy. But what was it like performing the song for the Oscar

audience? You guys were so committed, too. Oh, man. Yeah. Look, it's a number and a character that begs 100% commitment and not a drop less. It was, I mean, obviously it'll go with me for the rest of my life as one of my core memories

and I'll never forget that feeling. It was, I will say, a bit of a cluster in the lead up to the performance. You know, for myself and, you know, Shudi Ghatwa and Kingsley Benadir and Scott Evans, who were kind of the... You're the main Kens. Yeah, yeah.

Behind Ryan Gosling. I would say the main Kens behind, yes, the main backup Kens. We were kind of brought on relatively late in the process. And our first rehearsal was the Thursday before, the Oscars are on Sunday. So our first rehearsal was the Thursday before. And then we show up to the Dolby Center on Friday

to do kind of like a blocking rehearsal. And we realized that the choreography has completely changed. And we're like, okay, all right, this is completely different. We've relearned the entire thing now. But as long as nothing changes, we should be okay. So then of course we show up Saturday for the dress rehearsal

and the choreography's completely changed again. That was supposed to be the last time that we did it before the show. And we do it and I don't know if I'm blowing up any of my coworkers or anything, but you know there's 75 Ken's on stage, and they're all moving around. And I remember, like, the rehearsal was like, it didn't go poorly so much as it just didn't go. So we kind of get back into the dressing room, and everyone's kind of feeling like, like, okay, what's going to happen here?

And then one of the stagehands kind of comes in and is like, yeah, so you're gonna need to come in again early morning on the Sunday. The day of. The day of the Oscars and do like one last rehearsal because we're not ready. So we all met at the hotel connected to the Dolby Center in the early morning Sunday and we ran through it one last time and And it was in that last run through that we finally stuck it. And then, you know, I had something like seven minutes

to get ready for the red carpet. But it didn't even matter at that point. I was just like the entire time thinking about the choreography and thinking about just like not messing up on not only on live television, but also like in front of Chris Nolan and Downey and Killian Murphy and you know Greta and Margot you know just like the amount of you think about the audience and who was sitting

there and the amount of pressure that that was but but no thankfully it went it went really well and Ryan I mean just such a credit to him delivered one of the all-time greatest performances, I think, that the Oscars has ever seen and ever will see. I want to play a scene from Barbie. It's near the beginning of the movie. The main Ken, played by Ryan Gosling, has just tried to quote unquote beach. He was trying to run towards the water and he ends up hitting the plastic wave and he gets knocked down. And you play his number one op Ken like his nemesis Ken and you're laughing at him and the other Ken in this scene is Kingsley Benadir and Margot Robbie as

Barbie is also here too. Let's hear it. Oh looks like this beach was a little too much beach for you Ken. If I wasn't severely injured I would beat you off right now Ken. I'll beach off with you any day Ken much beach for you, Ken. If I wasn't severely injured, I would beach you off right now, Ken. I'll beach off with you any day, Ken. Hold my ice cream, Ken. All right, Ken, you're on. Anyone who wants to beach him off has to beach me off first. I will beach both of you off at the same time.

How are you going to beach both of us off? It doesn't make sense. Ken? Why are you getting a mocha? You're going to beach both of us off? Nobody's going to beach anyone off. OK? Let's go. Bestie Mulu in the 2023 film Barbie.

How did you come to be part of this film? I did a tape. I met up with Greta and we kind of talked a little bit about my like dance background is Greta has kind of an obsession with dance and you know musical theater and really just like spectacle and production, especially as it pertains to men doing it. I think it was something that she really wanted in the movie was you know, Ken's that kind of were always felt like they were performing to an audience that weren't there. And, you know, I told her about some of my dance background.

I was like on my university hip-hop competitive dance team or something. And she seemed to really love that. And, you know, in our first few rehearsals, I think, Greta came up to me and was like, I think you are going to be like Ryan's main rival, Ken. And I was like, that's insane. And she's like, yeah, you're going to ride into battle against him on a beach of pink

sand and you're going to fight using lacrosse sticks and, you know, pool floaties and things. And I was like, what is this movie, Greta Garwick? Yeah, you do show off your dance moves and as you mentioned, you did a lot of dance when you were at university. Can you talk about what your dance troupe was like? Yeah, so I, you know, freshman year of college, a lot of people are worrying about their studies or their partying or whatever.

And for me, I was like meeting up three times a week with the hip-hop Western dance team and, you know, doing choreo. And that was like, that was my number one passion at the time. I wanted to be a professional dancer. And yeah, we had, you know, we had competitions that we would prep for. Like competing against other universities. Like competing against other universities.

Competing against other universities. And it was, I have to, I gotta paint a picture, right? It was the heyday of like dance competitions. This was like 2008, 2009. So, you know, So You Think You Can Dance, America's Best Dance Crew hosted by Mario Lopez. Like, you know, the- The Jabberwockies.

The Jabberwockies, thank you for understanding that reference. We're everywhere. And so we were, you know, basically just watching the videos every single day, stealing all the moves, trying to add our own spin to it and poppin' and lockin' and, you know, using everything that we had in our tool set, which wasn't much, but we just loved it so much.

And I think it was where I kind of found my love of performing, especially, you know, I think growing up, you know, I went to a very academically inclined high school and really had to navigate my parents' expectations for most of my childhood. And they were definitely pushing me to be, you know, they were both electrical engineers, definitely wanted me to follow in their footsteps. And if not that, then definitely, you know, medicine, STEM, didn't want any of that for myself. You know, I wanted to kind of, I guess, be out there and be seen and dance to the music and to the beat.

You were born in Harbin, China, and you were raised there by your grandparents while your parents were trying to start a life in Canada. What do you remember about that time, those early years? You know, I remember flashes and feelings, but I do remember we had this tiny little ramshackle apartment in Harbin. You know, there wasn't running water for many parts of the day. The water wasn't drinkable, so we had to boil everything that we drank. And there was no hot water, so any time anyone had to take a bath, it was always kind of a bit of a thing. Although for me, I had no reference point. I just thought that that was how people lived. But I also, more than all of that, I remember this overwhelming sense of safety and belonging, you know, with my grandparents.

My yeye and my nai nai. I was very, very close with them. You know, we just, they were my parents for all intents and purposes. And they had always tried to tell me that I had a mom and a dad that were, you know, abroad and that one day I would join them. But I don't think these words necessarily mean anything to like a three or a four-year-old. It was very difficult for me to grasp that. And when my dad did show up one day, I was about four and a half,

to, you know, bring me back to Canada with him, it was very uncomfortable for me, and a lot for me to accept because, you know, I had my family, and I loved my grandparents more than anything. And my dad at that point was a stranger. I very, very vividly remember watching him step through the door for the first time. And, you know, when you're a kid and all these adults are looking at you like you're supposed to be reacting a certain way,

I very clearly remember my grandparents looking at me and saying, this is your dad, like go to him. And I just remember being like, I don't want to. Yes, you're picked up by your dad when you're almost five, and you moved to live with your parents in Canada. What do you remember about those early years, living with your parents who didn't really know and trying to acclimate yourself to this new country? It is a couple of funny things. I remember not understanding English.

Like I remember being brought to daycare my very first day and just crying my eyes out the entire time because nobody was speaking. I couldn't understand anybody. And I remember that's what it was for the longest time. And I know I was learning English through flashcards and my parents were trying to teach me. And then one day it just kind of clicked. And I'm sure that's not how it actually happened, right? Like we remember things very differently as children. But it honestly felt to me like one day I woke up and like my brain had switched between thinking in Mandarin and

thinking in English. And I remember my parents were very confused because I think one day I just stopped speaking Chinese to them. But you know, once I made the switch, I really kind of embraced it. And I remember those early years just that we were very, very poor. You know, my parents were living off of scholarship money until they graduated. My parents were doing their post-graduate studies. And once they were able to get jobs, you know, our living conditions slowly started to improve.

But for the longest time, like, this was a very unglamorous foray into Canada. You know, a lot of our furniture was kind of picked off the street. Yeah, I don't know. When I look back, it really gives me, I think, a unique perspective because I do feel like I've lived pretty much every single rung of the socioeconomic ladder. And I know what it feels like not to have running water, you know. And then I know what it feels like to be, you know, to live in a place as wonderful as Canada,

but, you know, starting off at the very bottom as well. Our guest is actor Simu Liu. His films include Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings, Barbie, and the new film Last Breath. More after a break. I'm Anne-Marie Baldonado, and this is Fresh Air. On Thru Line from NPR. The consequences for the country would have been enormous.

It would have been a crisis. The man who saw a dangerous omission in the U.S. Constitution and took it upon himself to fix it. Find NPR's Thru line wherever you get your podcasts. If you're a super fan of Fresh Air with Terry Gross, we have exciting news. WHYY has launched a Fresh Air Society, a leadership group dedicated to ensuring Fresh Air's legacy. For over 50 years, this program has brought you fascinating interviews with favorite authors, artists, actors, and more. As a member of the Fresh Air Society, you'll receive

special benefits and recognition. Learn more at whyy.org.freshairsociety. In your memoir, you write about how difficult it was for you growing up as a teenager with your parents and their unrealistic expectations for you. What was so hard about your relationship back then in your teens? Yeah, I think when you have parents who weren't necessarily present in your formative years and you're in the first five years of life like that's in your formative years and you're in the first five years of life. Like that's when a lot of your personality is solidified, you know.

And when you don't have that bond, there's bound to be a little bit of distance. And you know, I was effectively adopted by my own biological parents, right. You know, on the other side of that, for my parents and to their defense, like they also weren't necessarily in the rhythm of childcare. It's a never-ending job in and of itself. And so I think to have one day no kid and then overnight have a five-year-old just dropped into your life, I think, is a pretty violent change.

And so, yeah, I mean, I think growing up, there was definitely, you know, some tougher times for us to get along. And it really came to a head when I was a teenager, when I went through puberty. I think I was actually pretty good in the beginning of being the perfect kind of immigrant kid and getting good grades. But then I got older and hormones happened and of course every kid starts to get to a place where they're questioning their parents. And for me, I knew that I was being pushed in a certain way. And I really like I wanted to do sports and I wanted to have a girlfriend and do all these normal people things that my parents, you know, being from a different generation, a different culture, were like,

why are you concerned about these things? You should be focused on your studies. And it really just came down to just very, very different values. Your memoir is this beautiful, I think, way to try to reconcile what a lot of Asian American and Asian Canadian children of immigrants go through, that tension between knowing that your immigrant parents gave up so much for you, but they put all this pressure on you to succeed in a way that they understand. And it's not open to other ways of life. And I feel like you telling the story of your grandparents and your parents and your own story, trying to understand what they went through, it was like you were trying

to repair the hurt across generations. The way you do that by explaining their lives and their hardships and like what they came to parenting with as their background. Can you quickly describe what their teen years were like? Because it's this contrast to your teen years, obviously. Yeah, for sure. You know, my parents grew up in the midst of the Cultural Revolution in China, which, you know, between 1966 and 1976 was a very, you know, a very tumultuous time for a lot of the people living in China. It was very hard for a lot of reasons,

but one of the things about the Cultural Revolution was that college studies all across the country were shuttered. So instead of going to college, you would go to work in the fields. That was a way to teach Chinese youths about proletariat life. And so, yeah, my mom is a couple years older than my dad, which I know if she hears this, she will kill me. But she had graduated high school and was fully working in the fields. And my dad was kind of just on the verge of graduating when actually Mao Zedong died and his successor

kind of reinstated the college pipeline and the entrance, the national entrance exam. And so because of that, you know, my mom was able to go to college. You know, she was studying for the standard test called the Gaokao, but she was studying for that every day after working, you know, 12 hours in the field. And my dad was lucky enough kind of to go straight from high school to college, to university. And that was where they met. And you know, from there, you know, they fell in love, they got married, started to live in Beijing together, and became very enamored and very fixated on this idea of studying abroad.

And then the rest is history. For them, it was like literally the education that saved them. Yeah. And also, you know, when you're immigrants coming to an entirely new country, and you know, there's culture shock and there an entirely new country and there's culture shock and there's a new language, there's also a complete lack of support network. There's no safety net to fall back on. And so I think there's quite a bit of fear and anxiety that immigrants experience every

day that everything they have, if they're not able to make money and put a roof over their heads and their family's heads, like, that's it. You're out on the street or you're going back home, you're packing your bags. There is no friend that you can call. There's no parents. It's a very stressful existence every day. And especially when you have a son like me, who growing up is like trying to try out for the basketball team and doing hip hop dancing and you're like, no, please be an engineer.

Now even though you loved performing in high school and college, whether it was starting a high school boy band or performing in front of other students, you still went through school and university and got a business degree and graduated and became an accountant. But your accounting career was short-lived. Can you talk about what happened there? Your acting origin story? My acting origin story, yeah, for sure.

I mean, I think as rebellious as I was, even I couldn't fully disabuse myself from my parents' notion of success. Like, you know, I've been working as an accountant just completely and utterly miserable. I start going on Craigslist because for whatever reason, I had some friends who knew some people in just tangentially related to like film and television. There was a fair amount of stuff that shot in Toronto. just tangentially related to like film and television. There was a fair amount of stuff that shot in Toronto. I had friends from the parkour community that were stuntmen, people that I knew that were kind of extras on TV and movie sets.

I just remember being so jealous of them. And I started going on Craigslist to look for these acting opportunities. Just initially for fun, I really had no end game in mind. But I wound up skipping work one day to be an extra on a Guillermo del Toro movie that was shooting in Toronto. And it was called Pacific Moon. That's pretty high level too. High level. Yeah, yeah. Pretty amazing first set to be on. And I, you know, turned my phone off all day. And when I turned my phone back on, I had something like 47 missed calls.

And I was like, oh, I'm in trouble. I got I had something like 47 missed calls. And I was like, oh, I'm in trouble. I got fired very, very shortly after that, which, you know, honestly understandable. But yeah, that was the end of my very short-lived career as an accountant. But I was very lucky to kind of book a couple of things very quickly. And then I caught the bug and I thought, look, if I could just keep doing that, wouldn't that be a pretty incredible thing? I was waking up every day really motivated to go out and look for work.

I was just experiencing this entirely new version of myself. Because my whole life, I thought that I was just a lazy, under-motivated guy. I thought that I wasn't smart, and I thought that I wasn't a great student because I wasn't a hard worker. And, you know, all of a sudden, I was kind of pleasantly surprised by how motivated and hardworking I could be. And I just knew that there was something to that, that I had to keep going. And obviously kept it from my parents for a very long time, but in secret started to audition, and I got an agent in Toronto, and yeah, was off to the races. What was it like breaking into acting and performing, having no past experience, no training, no family in the business.

What kind of jobs did you get? Yeah, thank you for saying that. I really had no idea what I was doing. And it was very much a trial by fire, like make every mistake in the book. And I guess where I was lucky too, was it was around a time where I think these kind of very preliminary conversations

about diversity were starting to happen. So I was an Asian actor in Toronto, Canada, so it was already a small market. I was thrown into my first few auditions right away, and my first role was a deskop number one for this show called Nikita. And I had to speak with a Chinese accent. And in doing those kind of day player roles, I remember I did every accent in the book. I played a Japanese air traffic controller for the show called May Day. And then it became very obvious to me that I needed to kind of deepen my skill

set if I wanted to progress, right? You know, I took like second city acting classes and improv. I took every single night acting class that was available to me in Toronto. Basically any money that I made on the job, I put back into the business and then somehow wound up in a situation in 2016 where a sitcom called Kim's Convenience came along and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Let's take a short break here and then we'll talk some more. My guest is actor and writer Simu Liu. His films include Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings and Barbie. His new film is called Last Breath. More after a break. This is Fresh Air.

You've talked about this before, but I want to ask you about being hired to do stock photos. So, you know, if someone needs a photo of a diverse workplace or people working in an office at all, they could find a photo of you. Was that a good job for you at the time? And why are those photos still out there? Yeah, I wouldn't say it was a good job. I would say it was a job. I just kind of was doing everything that I could

to pursue my dream and to fuel my passion. So one of those things was to be a stock photo model. And I'm sure I didn't realize the full consequences of my actions at the time. Of your 100 bucks. Of my 100 bucks. But I remember I paid 100 bucks for a day of work. And I show up and I've got all these different changes I've actually showed up with all of my work outfits

So these are outfits that I actually wore to my job at Deloitte that obviously I wasn't wearing anymore because I wasn't an accountant But you know, I was like, oh, I think I could I think I could accurately portray this like office environment having lived it for a short time So I showed up with all my work outfits We did all these different poses and in the boardroom. I put on a suit and having lived it for a short time. So I showed up with all my work outfits. We did all these different poses in the boardroom. I put on a suit. I pointed at computers and smiled at people. And then I thought that would be it.

Little did I know the photos would actually do really well. And I've seen myself on billboards. I've seen myself on billboards, I've seen myself on corporate, you know, websites and I've seen myself on the cover of accounting textbooks. And so when you're a stock photo model, you basically sign away your rights to the images in perpetuity and the stock photo company can basically take those images and just sell them over and over and over and over again. So I probably made that company hundreds of thousands of dollars

and have not seen a single penny. Because again, when you're a stock photo model, I think it's actually pretty exploitative. But you get paid your $100, and then that's it. You sign a waiver, and then you relinquish any and all rights to those images. So let that be a warning to anybody who's considering pursuing a career in stock imagery.

Be warned. Watch out. You will end up in random places, and your friends will make fun of you endlessly for it. I wanna ask you about Shang-Chi and the legend of the Ten Rings. And Shang-Chi is the first Asian character to be a lead in the Marvel universe. Uh, the film was released in 2021.

Let's play a scene from the film. And as with a lot of Marvel films, it's kind of challenging to set up the story. But when we meet you at the beginning of the film, it's kind of challenging to set up the story. But when we meet you at the beginning of the film, you play Sean, who lives in San Francisco and spends a lot of time with his friend, Katie, played by Awkwafina.

You're attacked by assassins on a bus, and it comes out that your character has a secret identity. Your father was an immortal warrior, and your mother was also a magical fighter. And when your character was still a child, your mom gets murdered, and your father wants you to avenge her death. Instead, your character flees to the US.

It's now a decade later, and the father is looking for you and trying to call you back. Now, in this scene, it's your character explaining the story to Awkwafina. I know this is a lot to dump on you. I'm sorry about your mom. I should also probably mention that my name's not technically Sean.

What is it? It's Shang-Chi. Shang-Chi. Shang-Chi. Shang-Chi. Shang. Shang. Shang.

Shang. S-H-A-N-G. Sean. Sean. Sean. Sean. S-H-A-N-G. Sean. Sean? Yeah. You change your name from Sean to Sean?

Yeah, I don't. I wonder how your father found you. I was 15 years old. All right. What is your name change logic? You're going into hiding and your name is Michael. You want to change it to Michael. That's not what happened. What is your name change logic? You're going into hiding and your name is Michael, you go on change your name. Hi, Shul.

That's not what happened. It's like, hi, my name's Gina, I'm gonna go into hiding, my new name is Gina. That's a scene from the film, Shonchi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. The story goes that before you got this role, you tweeted at Marvel about how they needed to have an Asian superhero.

Sure. You did this? I did, yeah. Yeah. I was very chronically online as a young adult. Yeah. And, you know, I would have these moments at 3 a.m. where I'd get intensely frustrated about my career.

And, you know, I was starting to have all these kind of rudimentary thoughts about representation. But of course, yeah, I was watching Marvel movies. I loved Marvel movies, and I was just like, when are we going to have ours? When are we going to have an Asian version of Thor or Captain America? When are we going to have our superhero Avenger guy that we could look up to, you know, or girl? By the way, I have to say, you did a fantastic job

setting up the story of Shang-Chi. I really, I was blown away by how succinctly you captured the story of the Wenwu and the Shang-Chi of it all. And then the clip that you played, I really, it's so funny listening to it without the picture, It just reminded me just how talented of an improviser Nora Awkwafina is. A really, really good friend of mine today still. And just brought back a lot of amazing memories. So thank you for sharing that.

Well, yeah, that's it. Watching this film back, you know, it's so funny. You two are very funny together. And of course, it's this action. You two are very funny together. And of course it's this action movie, but there are also all these parallels between your character and your life. You know, there's the idea of parents wanting you

to be something or not. Of course, in the case of the movie, it's about being an assassin, but still. And then there are also these ideas, as we heard in the scene, like these ideas of trying to assimilate and trying to blend in. Was that one of the things that was attractive about this movie? I mean, yeah, look, I would have done this movie for free. I would have paid to do this movie. Let's just be clear. But no, I remember auditioning over the course of auditioning

for this movie, you know, and, you know, and in my mind I immediately go to, oh, are they going to cast somebody from Asia? Are they going to cast a national champion martial artist or something? What is the story that they want to tell here? It didn't necessarily feel like, you know, immediately apparent that it was going to be the kind of story that it was. But then, you know, Destin Daniel Cretton being attached as director, I think, informed a lot of the direction that I think the studio wanted to go with it, which, you know, I'm not going to say was an Asian-American story,

because I do think that the movie is for everyone, but, you know, it's just really incredible that Destin was able to find a way in and to tell the story about a flawed, but ultimately human character who is running away from who he is and running away from his parents and eventually chooses to embrace it but on his terms. My guest is Simu Liu. He stars in the Marvel movie, Shang-Chi and Legend of the Ten Rings, the film Barbie, and the TV sitcom, Kim's Convenience.

His new film is called Last Breath. More after a break, this is Fresh Air. I think many people first saw you on the CBC show,'s Convenience about an immigrant family in Canada who runs a convenience store. The show was picked up by Netflix and got a lot of viewers through that, including my mother by the way. And I want to play a scene from the pilot episode.

Your character Jung is estranged from his dad who runs the convenience store. They haven't talked for years. Jung is working at a car rental place when his dad shows up one day to return a car. Jung doesn't want to talk to his dad, so he asks his boss to talk to him instead. Hey. What's up? Uh, here's the thing. When I was 16, my dad kicked me out. Or I might have run away. It's all kind of like...

Okay, we're sharing. When I was 15, I got a perm. Really didn't suit me. No, that's my dad. Okay. I don't know how he knew that I worked here. I can't talk to him. Can you handle this?

I've been trying to get my cell phone plan upgraded for the last 40 minutes. Please, I will owe you big time. Okay, fine. But I'm talking to Peggy and I want unlimited texting in Canada and the US. Not Brazil, not Costa Rica, not Paraguay. Got it. That's a scene from the first episode of Kim's Convenience. I thought it was interesting reading your book that there was this echo in the show

in this first big role that you got early in your career. I remember being kind of 23 years old and deciding that I was going to be an actor. I mean, that catalyzed a moment of extreme tension with my parents. And so we would not speak to each other for long periods of time. I think it was very, very difficult for my parents to understand that choice. So yeah, when Kim's convenience came along, it was originally a play, actually. And I'd watched the stage play before auditioning for the show. But the play left me in tears because really the first time that I had seen that parent-child dynamic play out on stage and was so true to life.

It was so relatable to what I had been through and what I was going through even in that moment that I was just overwhelmed. I remember sitting in my seat crying and realizing that that's what it felt like to have art that you could connect with. And getting to play Jung and getting to act out his dynamic with his Amma and his Appa, I think helped me make a lot of sense of what my parents are going through, right? And I think that actually set the stage for our reconciliation quite nicely. Not only in that, it gave me consistent work as an actor, and so kind of made my parents actually kind of realize

that I was gonna do this. And they used to watch it with friends, too. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was quite a big deal in Canada before it was kind of blown up to a global audience with Netflix. But the other part of it was, I think, through the characters, we were learning about each other. You know, I was learning about what my parents were going through, through the ama and apa character.

And they were learning about what I was going through and what I wanted through the Jung character. And it kind of brought us closer together, which I will always be so endlessly grateful for, among other things. How are your parents feeling about you being an actor now? Feeling pretty good. They're both retired. My dad retired at age 60. He retired during the pandemic.

He didn't necessarily feel like he would have to spend, you know, time supporting me. And he was like, I think I'm going to be okay. So he was able to retire. And my mother retired very, very shortly after that. And now they kind of just travel the world and they don't experience any more anxiety about having to, you know, subsidize my life or support me. So it's a wonderful kind of happy ending for them. I think every time I talk to them, they've always kind of just come back from a cruise or are just about to go on a cruise. I think they're due to be in Caribbean like next week or something. And you know, it's some cruel reversal of roles,

being on set on a 16 hour night shoot, and you know, having your parents send you photos of them on vacation on your phone. It is a really ironic kind of role reversal situation, but I'm very, I'm very, very glad. Simu Liu, thank you so much for speaking with me today. Thank you so much for having me. Simu Liu stars in the new film, Last Breath.

He spoke with Fresh Air's Anne-Marie Boldenado. To find out what's happening behind the scenes of our show and get our producers recommendations for what to watch, read and listen to, subscribe to our free newsletter at whyy.org slash fresh air. And this week we have a special exclusive for our newsletter subscribers. I just interviewed comic Bill Burr. It was hilarious and a wild ride. Also very hard to edit down to fit our broadcast. It's airing Monday, but we're offering an early listen

of an extended version of that interview if you subscribe to our newsletter. To sign up, go to whyy.org slash fresh air. It'll come directly to your inbox Saturday morning. Fresh Air's executive producer is Denny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Roberta Shorrock, Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Boudinato, Lauren Krenzel, Theresa Madden, Monique Nazareth,

Thea Challener, Anna Baumann, and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly C.B. Nesbord. Susan Yacundi directed today's show. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Tarik Rose.