In a way, those stories will be lost in time if we don’t fight for them, because white people aren’t going to write it for us. So in a lot of ways, I… - Simu Liu

Growing up, I was obsessed with being desirable. Over the course of auditioning for [Shang Chi], I never really thought I had a chance the whole time, because I never felt like I was the best looking or the tallest or the best at martial arts.
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I have days where I really feel sexy and on top of the world, and I have days where I don’t. But more than everything I can be at peace with who I am as a whole—my charisma, my humor, my soul.

I was probably more optimistic than I should have been. I’ve always had a bit of delusional confidence. I think it’s the same delusional confidence I had when I first decided to become an actor as a 23-year-old failed accountant with absolutely zero training or idea about how the business worked.
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I was at a point where I was like, “I don’t deserve this role. What about me makes me worthy?” And ultimately, what I came to was that my self-worth doesn’t come from my appearance. It comes from whatever is going on underneath, whether you want to call it personality or charisma—that was going to be the thing that won me the role.

Even when I was a struggling actor, I was writing scripts, which were terrible, but I was fueled by a belief that I had to create the door. The right door wasn’t always going to open for me. Sometimes I was going to have to just crash through it or build one where there was no door before.