[MUSIC PLAYING] YUL KWON: Hi, everyone. Welcome to this "Talks
at Google" virtual event. My name is Yul Kwon and I'm
a director here at Google. And I'm excited to join you
in celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month,
and I'm especially excited to be interviewing
our special guest today. But before we get started,
just a quick reminder that we'll be opening
things up for Q&A later on. So please be sure to
add your questions to the live chat on the right. OK, so let's just
get this out there. I have been waiting for this
day for a really long time because today, I
get to interview the actor who will be making one
of my own childhood dreams come true. Simu Liu was born in
Harbin, China and immigrated to Canada at the age of five. He grew up near Toronto and
worked briefly as an accountant before he decided to
pursue acting as a career, nearly giving his parents a
heart attack in the process. Among his other
acting credits, Simu starred in the
breakthrough comedy series "Kim's Convenience,"
which recently finished its fifth and final season. This fall, Simu will be
starring as the title character in the blockbuster film
"Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," directed
by Dustin Daniel Cretton, and starring alongside
Awkwafina, Tony Leung, and Michelle Yeoh. Simu will be making
history as a star of the first Asian-led movie in
the Marvel Cinematic Universe, fulfilling my childhood dream
of seeing an Asian superhero in mainstream American media. Simu, welcome to
"Talks at Google." How are you doing? SIMU LIU: What's going on, Yul? It's so good to see you. YUL KWON: Yeah, man. Dude, that trailer was
absolutely bonkers. I got to ask you, how many times
have you seen that trailer? Like, do you watch it every
night before you go to bed? SIMU LIU: Oh man, you're going
to put me on blast right now. I do not watch it every
night, but the day that it came out I probably
went through it, like-- I probably blasted
through it 150 times. That's just a ballpark. But it comes out, and
then all of your friends are constantly talking
to you about it, and everyone that
you meet is like, can we watch the
trailer together? So I basically had to watch
it over and over again, which was not the worst
thing in the world. YUL KWON: I could think
of worse things to do. SIMU LIU: Definitely. Definitely. I hadn't seen it in
a couple of days. So, yeah, it still
holds up, I got to say. Got to say, our trailer
people are top notch. YUL KWON: So I got to ask you
a really important question. How many push-ups did you end
up doing that one day when they were filming you working out? Because it looked like you
were doing a lot of push-ups. SIMU LIU: Oh yeah, that's a
really important question. We must have done-- I don't know. Dustin really likes
to do coverage. So I think I gave-- my job as an actor was just to
give him options of push-ups. Like, are these really-- are we doing normal
push-ups, are we doing-- so the ones that ended up making
it into the movie are these hopping push-ups
that kind of change-- like, the grip
changes every time. I don't know if
you guys noticed. Maybe a little Easter egg
for you guys to rewatch. YUL KWON: I did notice. SIMU LIU: Oh, nice. Well, you're clearly in shape. YUL KWON: I didn't see the
diamond push-up, though. SIMU LIU: Didn't see
the diamond push-up. That's good. That'll be a good note for-- we could do reshoots. It's all good. YUL KWON: Well,
did it bum you out that they had to
edit you to make you look slower and less buff
than you do in real life? I mean, that must
have kind of sucked. SIMU LIU: Yeah, you know,
someone really pulled me aside at Marvel and was
like, OK, you're going to have to tone it down. And I was like, yeah,
no, I understand. I'm too fast and too
buff, and movie audiences aren't ready for that. It was a hard conversation. YUL KWON: For me it
was kind of opposite. When I was on
"Survivor," they made me look a lot bigger and
taller than I really am. So whenever I met
someone on the street, they would always be like,
man, why are you so short? I'm like, I don't know, man, I
was just kind of born this way. How about in your case? What's the thing that fans
are most surprised when they finally get a chance
to meet you in person? SIMU LIU: Oh, my God. I've heard this-- I don't know if this
is a good or bad thing. I haven't figured it out yet. But some people say I'm
much more handsome in person than I am on the screen. And I don't know-- I'm like, which one-- I legitimately don't know
which I would rather have. Would you rather be more
handsome on a screen or more handsome in real life? YUL KWON: That is
a good question. That is a good question. I live the other side
of it, where people are was disappointed that
I'm not as tall or as good looking as I am on TV. I would definitely say it's much
better to be in your situation. I'd much rather be better
looking in real life than on TV. Because you look pretty
damn good on TV, man. I got to say. SIMU LIU: Thank you, thank you. There's going to be a lot
of bromance on this talk. YUL KWON: There will
be a lot of bromance. And just before-- I don't want
to embarrass you too much, but before we get
started, I just want to say I'm really
proud of what you're doing. We talked about this before, but
when I was growing up as a kid, I didn't see a lot of Asian
role models on television and it really affected
the way that I grew up. And growing up as
a kid, I always wished that I saw one of
those role models, one of those heroes or
superheroes, and I never thought I would see
it in my lifetime. And we made a lot of
progress as a community over the last
decade, but the fact that you're going
to be doing this, the fact that you're playing
the first Asian superhero in a major film franchise
is just amazing. And I'm so proud of you and
I'm so proud of the fact that you're using this platform
to not just talk about yourself or your career, but a
lot of the broader issues affecting our community. And we'll get into this
stuff, but I just want to say, man, I'm so happy
for you and I'm just really rooting for you. SIMU LIU: Thank you, thank you. And for all that
you've accomplished, too, and all of your
accolades, I think-- I mean, I never had
that growing up either. And it's-- I really stand on the
shoulders of people like you. Honestly, I mean that. Asian representation has
existed in the past few years, you just have to really,
really look for it and dig. And when you look back in
the last couple of decades, there have been
real trailblazers. Trailblazers like yourself,
people that have really put themselves out there. And you've mentioned
multiple times, too, the reason
why you ultimately decided to go on "Survivor"
was to show the world what it would look like for
an Asian American man to be in that show. And then, of course,
ended up winning. So hey. YUL KWON: I appreciate
you saying that. I mean, my hope had
always been that if I could go on a major
television franchise and show that you can
have an Asian lead in it and not have the ratings
tank, that that would just be one more proof point. And I'd always hoped
that other people in our community like yourself
who, unlike me, actually have talent, would be
able to capitalize and get these opportunities to really
represent us on a whole nother playing field. And that's exactly
what you're doing. So yeah. Dude, I'm just so excited
to have you on here. I'm so excited to have a
chance to get to chat with you. And more than that,
give the people watching some visibility
into who you are as a person, the things that made
you who you are today, and some of the things
that you care about. So yeah. So I have a ton of
questions I want to ask you about the movie,
but if it's OK with you, I'd like to maybe back up
and start at the beginning, before all this really
kind of blew up. So as I was getting
ready for this talk, I saw a lot of your
interviews and I read a lot of your writings, and the thing
that really struck me the most was a letter that you wrote
a few years ago to your mom, which ended up getting
published in a magazine called "Maclean's." And in that letter, you
did a lot of things. You wrote about your
relationship with your mom, you talked about
some of the hardships that you had growing up, why
you decided to go into acting, and you talked a lot about
how you learned to look back through the events
of your childhood through your mother's eyes. And I got to say, man, it
was so beautifully written. It really resonated
with me on a deep level because it just reminded
me of my own childhood, my own relationship
with my parents. So if we could
start there, I just want to ask you, what made you
decide to write that letter? SIMU LIU: Sure. Yeah, that letter changed
the course of my relationship with my parents. So it is a very
important letter for me. What was happening
was my mom actually turned 60 a few
years ago, and I know she'll skewer me
alive for saying that on an online
public platform, but I'm so sorry, mom. She turned 60, which
is a big milestone, and I was kind of in the
midst of writing her a card. And our relationship
up until that point had not been one
that was conducive to emotional vulnerability and
deep talks, anything like that. It was very kind
of surface level. And like you kind
of alluded to, it came after also just a very,
very acrimonious teenage years. We fought all the time, and
my relationship with my mom was awful, awful. We would literally
argue from the moment I got home from
school every day, and so I would
literally just make up excuses not to come home. I would try to stay over
at friends' houses, would try to take the last bus home. We just really didn't like
to be around each other. And around the time that
my mom turned 60, I-- sorry again-- I was on a show
called "Kim's Convenience." We had just had a couple
of seasons of success, so things were looking
really good for my career for the first time. I spent a number of years
kind of in credit card debt, struggling and living
the starving artist life. And I had just started
auditioning in the states. I had gone down to LA for maybe
the first time, spent the pilot season down there. And there was just
so much uncertainty going on in my life, where
I was learning a new city, I was trying to figure
out what my way was, and there's just so much-- even though I was on a show and
the immediate kind of anxiety of, what is my next
thing going to be? That was taken away. It kind of gave way to this
greater question of, OK, now that I have this kind
of toe in the door, how am I going to open the
door and how am I going to continue to build a career? Because that show is
going to end someday. And I just thought
about my parents and what it must have been
like for them at age 30, 31, coming to Canada
for the first time, going through, experiencing
a lot of the same anxiety that I was going through. Except, of course, they
didn't speak the language. They didn't have a nest egg
that they could fall back on. They didn't have
savings of any sort. So it was really just them
in a completely new country, left to their own devices. And kind of for
the first time, I started to understand life
from their perspective. And so when I started
penning this letter, I kind of started with, I know
that things haven't always been rosy and easy
between us, but I just want to let you
know, I'm starting to understand where
you're coming from. And even though I felt like
the anxiety that you felt, it kind of trickled down to me
and really negatively impacted our relationship, I understand
where it comes from. I can feel it now, too, myself. And I just wanted her to
know that I loved her. And it's not something that
we usually say to each other, but that I loved her and that
I see her for what she's done and everything that she's kind
of sacrificed for our family. And it was a very
important moment for me. And kind of, like
I said, completely changed the course
of our relationship. YUL KWON: Yeah, I mean, I think
for so many Asian kids who grew up from immigrant parents
who would just struggle-- I think it speaks to
so many of our stories. How did your mom react? What did she think, first
of all, when you give her the letter, and secondly,
when you published it to the entire world? SIMU LIU: Yeah, so it's actually
funny how it worked out. I wrote that letter
completely privately. I didn't have any
sort of inkling that it would be publicized. But my mom read the letter,
and she got very emotional, and basically what I had
hoped would happen happened. Which is, she took the
letter, she kind of understood where I was
coming from in terms of where my personal
pain came from as well. Because things weren't
always great, and she did-- she is that kind of
mom that has said some of the most painful
things in my life that I ever remembered. And it's like, as an adult, you
can't just forget those things. You can't unlearn those things. So the fact that she
kind of acknowledged that and wanted to move forward-- really, really incredible. And she said I love you
back, which made me cry. And then after that,
we actually ended up going out for our first kind
of mother-son Mother's Day date dinner thing ever. And it was just such
an incredible moment, just to sit across
from my mom and just to hear her talking
about what was going on with her life and things that
she worries about, all of that. And then actually a
couple months later, I had a friend who worked at
"Maclean's," and he was like, we're doing this letter
series called "Before You Go," which talks about
the unsaid words that you want to say
to your loved ones before you lose
the opportunity to. I was like, that's
so funny, I actually just wrote a letter to my mom
for the exact same reason. And so I ended up
kind of transcribing parts of that letter
and showing it to him. And he was like,
this is perfect. And then it ended up
coming out in "Maclean's." YUL KWON: Yeah, that's amazing. It's a beautiful story. I'm planning on
basically taking a letter and just pretending I wrote
it and saying it to my mom and doing the same thing. So thanks for doing
the hard work, man. Now, you also wrote
about how you started off pursuing the kind of career that
your parents laid out for you, going to a good business
school and landing a job at an accounting firm. How did you-- can you
tell us a little bit about how you made the
transition from the path that your parents laid
out to acting, which was, I'm guessing, not something
that your parents-- or most Asian parents-- would
be super excited to hear that their kids are
now going to be doing. How did that happen? SIMU LIU: Yeah, I should start-- where do you even begin
with that question? So first of all, I think
the acting bug had always been in me out of some, maybe,
combination of the attention that I was lacking
in my upbringing. Because my parents-- both
electrical engineers, both working professionals,
both very, very driven, very career-oriented people,
worked really long hours. And for me, I would just
come home from school, I would be home alone for
another two or three hours, and I would watch TV and
I would watch movies. And sometimes on the weekends,
my parents would drop me off at the theater, 20 bucks in my
pocket, 10:30 in the morning, and then say, we'll see you
around six o'clock for dinner. And it was enough for a
movie ticket, popcorn, drink. And basically just spent the
day at the theater hopping from one cineplex to the other. So I'd always loved it. I always loved the
magic of movies. I always loved escaping into
the world of cinema and stories and all that. Of course, that was never an
option to pursue as a career. And so for me, I was raised
always under the impression that if I wanted to
provide for my family, if I wanted to build
a successful career, I had to do it through
STEM, through medicine, through engineering, technology. And I was no good at it. I was terrible,
especially in high school. I was definitely more concerned
about breakdancing and girls and catching the latest
episode of "The OC" than I was with keeping
up with my studies. So it became very
obvious very quickly that wasn't going to happen. And kind of next on the list,
which was kind of STEM-adjacent but not really, was
business and law. Not rooted in science,
but still kind of respectable fields of study. And that's kind of
where I landed in terms of possible career paths. Because I wasn't
half bad at math, I kind of liked the
idea of going to work every day in a nice suit. So I was like, yeah, why not? This could work. So that's kind of how I
decided my field of study in university. So fast forward four years,
I've graduated from school. Again, same thing, really
dragged myself through college. I was not one of the kids that
read "The Wall Street Journal" every day. And trust me, there were
kids in my business school that literally came to
school, the newspaper in hand. They were literally
21-year-old investment bankers just ready to unleash
themselves onto Wall Street and contribute to
whatever is going on in our capitalistic economy. But anyway, I found
myself at Deloitte, which is a big
professional services firm. The largest in the
world, actually. And I was doing accounting. I was not doing consulting. The iBanking and consulting
jobs would always be the most coveted, and
somewhere at the very bottom was the accounting/audit stuff,
and that was where I landed. And ended up-- at
that point in time, I think my parents
really felt this-- unfortunately-- this
false sense of security, where they were like,
OK, we finally-- after all these
years of fighting, we've finally gotten
to a place where our son has graduated college,
gotten a job, he's fine. We can finally take a breather
and relax because he's going to be all right. Accounting jobs are
super safe, he's just going to keep working,
he's going to get his CPA, he's going to start
a family, he's going to have a very,
very normal, stable life. YUL KWON: So you lulled
into a sense of security before you pull out the rug. SIMU LIU: Yes. Yes, exactly. And to be fair, I
didn't pull out the rug. The rug was pulled
out from under me, because about eight months
after I started my job, I got laid off. And-- YUL KWON: There you go. SIMU LIU: Yep, there you go. Not surprising at
all considering I was the guy that did
not stay late ever. All of my spreadsheets would
just be so riddled with errors, and they were just like, this
guy doesn't want to be here. Which was very true. YUL KWON: Last one
in, first one out. Yeah. SIMU LIU: Exactly. Exactly. So when I was finally kind
of left without a job, without anything to do,
any sort of direction, I kind of felt this
rock bottom moment where I kind of felt
like I was just a fraud. I was like a Ponzi scheme
guy that had been kind of-- like you said, I've been
kind of lulling my parents into this false
sense of security, and when the whole time,
I was just really trying to maintain a facade. And at that point, April 12,
2012, that facade finally-- it all just came crumbling down. And I was finally
exposed for who I was. So I was at rock bottom. I had no job. And I thought I could
either bounce right back, start interviewing again,
get a job somewhere else, probably go through
the same thing. Or I can just kind
of take a breather, do something for
myself, something that had always piqued my curiosity. So I was like, well,
I would love to find my way onto a movie set. I had heard about
some friends of mine that had been extras in
movies and had always been so jealous of them. So I, without any sort of other
way in or anybody to know, I went on Craigslist and
I found an extras listing for this movie called "Pacific
Rim" directed by Guillermo del Toro. And that's kind of how
the old legend goes. I found myself on set
making minimum wage, fell in love with
the whole thing, and then kind of resolved
to do it every day for the rest of my life
as long as somebody would be willing to give me a chance. And thankfully, it's
been almost 10 years and I've gotten quite a few
chances, which is great. But-- I'm so sorry--
the original question was, how did my parents react? Which is, of course, terribly. I actually kind of kept it from
them for as long as I could, but then it got
to a point where I had booked my first
national commercial and it was about to air cross
country, and I was like, I should probably
let my parents know. So I actually sat them down
and I came out to them. I told them about
what I was doing and that I had lost
my job and everything. And to be fair to them,
I think in the beginning, they were initially
very understanding because they were convinced
that I would drop it after a couple of weeks. They were like,
OK, we understand, you're probably
massively depressed from losing your job
at such an early age, he just needs to do some
things and then he'll kind of get his head back in the game. And unfortunately,
as time went on, I just kind of
became more and more invested in what I was doing. And that was when my parents
really started to worry. And it got to a point
where we didn't really talk for almost two years
because they felt like I was throwing my life away. And to be fair, I
was walking away from a very, very
expensive education. And it took a long time
for them to kind of-- for all three of
us as a family-- to kind of turn around. YUL KWON: I can
totally empathize. I remember when
I told my parents I was going to go
on a reality show, I thought they're
going to disown me. So to this day-- it's funny, my
dad still asks me once a year when I'm going to go back to
school to get a PhD in physics. I'm like, dad, that
ship has sailed. It's not going to happen. Your parents still ask you if
it's going to happen one day? SIMU LIU: The "are you
going to go to law school?" thing, or "are you
going to get an MBA?" It actually continued pretty
far into "Kim's Convenience." But I would say when I
booked this last one, it kind of put the nail
in the coffin for that. So they've, I think,
officially laid that to rest. Although, I don't know. I think deep down, they're
holding out for some sort of an honorary doctorate
from-- one day I'll give a commencement speech, and
they'll be like, OK, well, did you get the diploma or
something at Harvard or Yale or-- I'm manifesting it
into the universe now. YUL KWON: Well, I
got to say, if you're going to skip going
to business school, law school, being a
superhero instead as a career is pretty-- it's not too shabby. SIMU LIU: I think it makes for
a pretty interesting essay. You know how when you're
applying to school, you have to-- so I think I'd have
a pretty nice essay. YUL KWON: "Why I've Decided
to Go to Business School and Stop Being a Super Hero." I think that would
be pretty compelling. So one thing I
wanted to ask you-- as you were transitioning
into the industry-- I mean, it's been
pretty clear that there are a lot of challenges for
people from our community. So growing up, there's
such an absence of Asian American or
Asian Canadian actors in mainstream media. And typically, they're
portrayed according to these one-dimensional
stereotypes. When I got older, I learned
that the lack of representation wasn't because of a lack
of talent in our community, but really it's a lack of
opportunities in a system that typically overlooks Asians. For you, what were
some of the barriers that you faced in
your acting career, and how were you able
to try to break through to get to where you are today? SIMU LIU: Well,
OK, I'll be frank. The first barrier was that I
didn't know what I was doing. I had literally studied business
and accounting my entire life and I just made this
decision to try acting out. And it's such a-- I think it's a fallacy
that a lot of people have that acting is
just, you show up, you get your makeup done, you
say a bunch of lines on a page. And to be fair, it is
all of those things. But it's also-- acting as an
art form kind of goes so much deeper, and I
think I was missing that kind of background. And so I hit a wall
pretty early on, where I-- my first year, I booked
some commercials, some speaking roles-- very, very small ones-- and I found myself at
the edge of my capability as just kind of a
natural whatever-- actor, or very kind of low-level actor. But in order for me to
take the next step, which is to play characters that
had any sort of nuance or any sort of an
arc or a progression, I had to get better. So I actually put myself
through a ton of night classes. I took improv at
The Second City. I did everything that I possibly
could with the severance package from Deloitte to put
me in a position to succeed. So that was--
first and foremost, I had to get my level up. Secondly, though, and it's
kind of what you alluded to, was that the system just
didn't know what to do with me. So in the beginning, I think-- I ticked a lot of boxes because
I was an actor of color, and so that meant that
I got a lot of roles as the Asian guy in a friend
group that doesn't really say anything but is kind of
in the background, really. And just a little bit of
color, but not too much, to make the screen a
little bit more diverse. And back in 2012-2013,
that was OK. And as I kind of
went on and I started auditioning for
slightly bigger roles, I found that the number of
auditions that I was getting was going down. I was barely booking
anything and barely even being able to go out. And when I did,
it would be like-- I would be reading these
pages and being like, well, these aren't
characters that I'm playing. These are-- stereotypes
isn't even the right word. I'm playing-- YUL KWON: Caricatures. SIMU LIU: --caricatures. I'm playing emojis. Like, literally, some of my
first roles was, like, just "surprised guy." So it was like a step
below stereotype. Because all I had to-- YUL KWON: Surprised Guy. SIMU LIU: Yeah, you know,
the guy in the grocery store that's like-- someone comes in with a gun
and you're like, "Oh, my God!" Or you're a tech guy in
some sort of spy movie and you're like, "Oh no!" Just something ridiculous. It's not even a stereotype. And what I realized was
that we weren't represented in decision making positions. And so therefore, none of the
projects that were coming out, they would never
organically feature nuanced Asian characters. That was an unfortunate
reality that I had to face pretty early on. And at the same time, it kind
of fostered-- it kind of ignited inside me this kind of
entrepreneurial spirit that I had maybe picked up
a little bit from business school, where I was like, OK,
the opportunity isn't there. And instead of saying, "Oh,
my God, the opportunity isn't there, this is going
to be terrible for me, I shouldn't try this,
I should give up," it became, "This is an
opportunity because it's a brand new market
and it's immature, so there's just so
much that could happen and there's so much
opportunity for growth." And so for me, I was
like, why don't I become the one that
tells the stories, not just as an actor, but as
a screenwriter, as a director. So I tried to teach myself
those skills as much as I could in
conjunction with acting. And it just kind
of made me really take responsibility of my
career from day one, which has been good. YUL KWON: Yeah, I really
applaud you for that. It's funny because
a long time ago, I interviewed Daniel Dae
Kim for the series on CNN. And back then, he
had just started playing a Korean character
named Jin on "Lost." And I remember asking him
how he felt about some of the criticism
he got back then for playing what a
lot of Asian Americans saw as a one-dimensional
stereotype, someone who was a foreigner, didn't speak
English, and even worse, was misogynistic. And what he told me
was really eye opening. It was kind of similar
to what you said. He said, it's not the
case that Asian actors have the luxury of picking
whatever roles they want. For most Asian actors,
they're just trying to get by, they're just trying to pay the
bills, and it's hard for them to be in a position
to turn down roles. But what he said was
really kind of inspiring. He said, what I'm
trying to do is, I want to bring a level of
craft and nuance to this role and imbue this otherwise
one-dimensional character with a level of depth that maybe
they wouldn't otherwise have, and over the course
of the series, to help this character
evolve into a fully realized three-dimensional person. And to his credit, that's
exactly what Daniel did. So by the end of the
series, Jin had really evolved as a character. He even learned
to speak English. And by the end of the
series, he was one most popular characters. And it's funny because when I
look at "Kim's Convenience," which is amazing-- if any of you out there have
not seen "Kim's Convenience," I highly recommend it. It's on Netflix. The last, fifth season,
is coming shortly. But your character
is such a contrast. I mean, one, you spoke English
from day one, which was great. But you were just a fully
three-dimensional human being. I mean, basically, you were
playing a version of yourself. Someone who was funny, caring,
flawed, had troubled past and was trying to
find a way in life. And so I just want
to ask you, what was your attitude and approach
to playing this character? And how did it feel
like to play someone who is so similar to yourself? And how did you try
to tell that story? SIMU LIU: I think you
really hit it on the head when you said that it
was a character that just felt like a shade of me. I felt like going in-- throughout the entire
audition process, I feel like I understood
Jung so intimately because of my own complicated
history with my parents. And I don't if you
know this, but "Kim's Convenience" used to be a play. It was written by Ins Choi. It kind of debuted at a
French Festival in Toronto and absolutely just
blew up from there. And so I actually
had the opportunity to watch the play on
stage before I auditioned for the show, and it was just
such an amazing, transformative experience. Because I think as a person
of color who doesn't often see themselves represented,
going to the theater or watching Shakespeare
can be nice and fun, and there's really great
costumes and all that. But it never felt really
accessible in the way that I imagined theater might
be for somebody who is white. And when I watched
"Kim's Convenience," that was that moment for me
where I immediately saw myself represented on stage. And it was literally like
watching my life play out. And I remember just crying my
eyes out because I didn't-- I just had never seen
anything like that before, and I never had
that relationship with any sort of art, ever. And it was in that moment
that I sort of understood that the spirit
of that character and the spirit of
Appa's character, and I knew what I had
to bring to my audition as that character. And so when I finally
got it, it was just-- it kind of reinforced
what I already knew, and going to work
every day was just-- it was honestly just like
going to therapy in a way. I was reading these scenes
between Jung and Appa and the way that they
argued, and I was like, yes, I remember exactly when
my parents said this to me, and I remember this is
how I felt in that time. So it was very easy
for me to understand the crux of their conflict. And yeah, thankfully,
we've had five seasons to kind of explore that dynamic. But sadly, we've had to say
goodbye in this last one. YUL KWON: Yeah, I was
crushed, along with millions of other fans that the show
wasn't going to continue. How did you feel about that? SIMU LIU: Me too. I felt very complicated. I felt kind of
betrayed, to be honest because we were in
a situation where our showrunners
had kind of chosen to move on to other projects. But we always felt that there
were other creatives of color that could have stepped
up to the plate, ourselves included, between
Paul and Jean and Janet and myself and Andrew. YUL KWON: Is that a possibility? SIMU LIU: We thought
it could have been. And we had definitely
all voiced our interest to kind of take on
larger creative roles, whether as a director,
as one of the writers in the writing room. And so we made those
intentions known, and at the end of the day,
though, we are unfortunately still small fish in a big pond. So unfortunately, it came
down to the producers making a decision
that they didn't want to continue with the
show because they didn't feel like they could continue to give
the quality that fans were used to. I have to disagree, but-- that being said, I think
it doesn't take away from, like you mentioned, just the
incredible impact the show has had over five
years, the fans that we've touched now all over
the world, thanks to Netflix. I mean, we spent a year
shooting the movie in Sydney, and when I got recognized,
I did not get recognized as, "oh, my God, that's Shang-Chi." It was like, "that is Jung
Kim from "Kim's Convenience" and I need a picture with him." It's so wide reaching,
and it's a show that people tell me that
they watch with their kids, with their families, parents,
grandparents, aunts, uncles. So there's just something so
wholesome and great about that, that it is a show that
brings people together. And we're really proud of it. YUL KWON: Yeah, it's
an incredible show. And I'm still holding out hope. I'm hoping there'll
be some way to-- maybe after you come back after
the premiere of "Shang-Chi," you could use your superpowers
to-- at that point, you're not small
fish anymore, man. But I think stories
like this and series like this really provide
a level of insight. And it's just funny as hell. So I would love
to see more things like this continue, and if
you're producing and writing right now, I'd love to see you
talk to some of these stories. SIMU LIU: Well, you know what,
they brought "Friends" back. So if they could
bring "Friends" back, I'm sure anything could happen. YUL KWON: Yeah, just don't
wait, like, 20 years, man. SIMU LIU: Yeah. YUL KWON: OK, so we'll turn
to questions in a little bit, but just one last thing I
wanted to talk to you about. So moving to the movie
that's coming up. Again, this is a big
deal, and it just-- I remember growing up as a
kid, not seeing role models, not seeing fully
realized Asian heroes. It really impacted the
way that I saw myself, and it limited what I
thought I could become. I never imagined I could
grow up to become a leader. It's funny, when I was
a kid, my biggest hero was Big Bird on "Sesame Street." Because he was big, he was
yellow, he had lots of friends. And because he was yellow,
he was clearly Asian, right? So my model was Big Bird. SIMU LIU: Nice. YUL KWON: The next
generation of kids, man, they're going to have a
superhero to look up to. And I just didn't think it
would happen within my lifetime, I thought. But it's just another
whole ballpark. I mean, it-- let
me just ask you, what does it mean for you-- if you had seen someone
like yourself in this role when you were
growing up as a kid, how do you think
you would have felt? SIMU LIU: Well, I probably
would have dressed up as him for Halloween, that's for sure. I'd probably have owned
all of his action figures. And I think something
deeper inside of me would have developed
very differently. I think I would have-- there might have just been
some sort of innate confidence that this is possible. And that's-- I echo you in that
I never felt that growing up. And I loved watching
superheroes, I loved watching "X-Men,"
Saturday morning cartoons, and all of that and just-- it was kind of
disheartening not seeing myself represented in any
sort of capacity and feeling like that level of superheroism
or whatever have you, that that was reserved for
certain type of people, not me. And it kind of-- it was an
asterisk that kind of, I think, bled through to other
aspects of my life as well. But what it means for me now
is that I can be that for kids, and I can be that, I think,
not only on screen, but also off screen. I was talking to you
about this before, Yul, but I have had the immense
fortune of having a career built on Asian projects. With "Kim's Convenience"
in 2016, with-- my first role that I
ever shot in the states was "Fresh Off the
Boat," and the second one was "Nora from Queens." So literally from
project to project, the big milestones
of my career have all come because of Asian creatives,
Asian storytellers, and people that were willing to give me,
an Asian performer, a chance. So I've always felt that
that's very important that I kind of keep
that momentum going and I represent Asian
Americans as just-- whether it's doing
talks like this or just going out and
just leading by example and being unapologetic in who
I am and how I present myself, and being proud of my
ethnicity and my heritage and my family's story. These are things that are
very important to me now. And so I think it really does
go beyond the action figures and the Halloween costumes. But I hope that you and I both
are a part of that kind of wave that'll change the way that
Asian kids grow up today. YUL KWON: Yeah, I
totally hear you, man. Speaking of Halloween, I
remember when I was a kid, I was a huge fan
of Marvel Comics, and Incredible Hulk was one
of my favorite characters. So I convinced my mom to
let me dress up as a Hulk by going shirtless--
this was, like, when I was five-- going shirtless. We got a pair of purple pants
and I cut them up with holes, and I walked with
my mom outside. Someone called the
police because they thought I was a neglected child
because I was walking around with no clothes that
had holes in them. SIMU LIU: Oh, my God. YUL KWON: That's how
desperate I was to try to find these role models. But yeah, man, to
your point, I really think these things matter. I think when you're a kid,
you're watching movies, and it just gives you this very
clear implicit signal of what you can be and whether you
belong and when you don't. And so I just can't
express how important I think this is, the
work that you're doing. And I just also just want to
applaud you for the fact that-- look, I mean, back
in the day, there are a lot of actors
I've spoken to who had achieved some degree
of mainstream success. And I'll be honest,
a lot of them were very ambivalent about
talking about Asian issues, about speaking
for the community, about engaging in these things. Because a lot of
them were afraid that they would get
pigeonholed, or that it would reflect negatively
on them in such a way that it would limit their
career opportunities. And so it's been just
really refreshing to see you and so many other people
who are in the limelight now using that spotlight to talk
about these things in a way that I feel is
really empowering. And so I just want to, again,
give huge credit to you. And it's not just
Asian American issues. I know you've been really
vocal on using your platform to do a bunch of stuff. You're a UNICEF
ambassador for Canada, you partnered with the
California Milk Processing Board on an initiative
called No Kid Hungry. And you've also been, again,
very vocal on this whole plague of anti-Asian racism. You wrote an article in
"Variety" recently about this. Can you maybe just
talk a little bit-- we'll get to the questions--
but can you maybe just talk about why you're doing this? Why do you feel like
it's important for you to use this platform
to give voice to people who don't have one? SIMU LIU: Well, I think
in the case of what's been going on, especially-- I'll speak to that-- I mean, every time I see an
article drop on NextShark or I see a video of another
attack, I see my parents. I see my parents,
I see their kind of somber humility,
and just the fact that they're people who,
from the moment they arrived in this country, tried to
make themselves as small as possible so as to not
inconvenience anybody else. And it just made me so
incredibly angry that those are the people
among our community that are being targeted
and are being targeted at such an alarming rate. I mean, there have been
almost 4,000 documented cases of harassment and violence
towards AAPIs over the last 15 months. And by the way,
that's documented. And if you know
our parents at all, you know that the real number
is definitely much higher because our parents are
not ones to report things as they happen. So that 4,000 is going to be
grossly, grossly underreported. I just feel like we
in the AAPI community know so well what that feeling
of being invisible and being overlooked and ignored
time and time again is. And that's kind of why it's
taken the mainstream media so long to acknowledge it,
what's been happening, and to acknowledge the validity
of our pain and our struggle. And what I think
needs to happen right now more than anything is
we need to educate ourselves and we need to educate the
world on the roots of this. And there is a root to this
anti-Asian hatred and prejudice that goes back
beyond just COVID. It goes back over
150 years to when we had the first
Chinese immigrants come to America to build
the railroads, and then the Exclusion
Act passed as a response to that in 1882. And it goes through
the internment of Japanese Americans
during the Second World War. I mean, it's just this
sense that no matter how long we've been
here, we're always stuck in this perpetual
state of being a foreigner, being an other, being an alien. And I think one of the
ways that we can really combat this is by not being
afraid to stand up for-- and not making ourselves small,
but making ourselves big. And one of the ways
we make ourselves big is by joining in our community
and joining with one another, being outspoken and
educated on these issues, and being politically
active as well. AAPIs are the fastest growing
electorate group in the US, and our contribution
to the latest election is a big reason why
states like Georgia and Arizona and Pennsylvania
were able to flip. So I think those are things
that really give me hope. And just the fact
that when you have a force as strong as
what's going on right now in hatred and prejudice,
that we meet that with an equal and
opposing force of love, of support, and of unapologetic
two feet on the ground standing tall and pride in who we are. YUL KWON: Hey,
man, amen to that. I could not have
said that any better. And just personally,
I want to thank you. I mentioned this the other day,
but my mom, who's 76 years old, got confronted by
a man on her way to get her COVID shot who
basically told her, this is my country, get out of here. And what you're doing-- on two fronts-- both using your
platform to speak out on these issues, and also just changing
the hearts and minds of people by being in this major film that
will normalize and make it-- people-- it's coming at such
an important time right now in the
history of this country and the history
of our community. So I'm so glad that
you're there spearheading a lot of this stuff. And I couldn't wish you more
luck or be prouder of you. All right, man, so
why don't we go over to some of these questions? We have lots of people
who are interested. So why don't we
share the first one? All right, Benjamin Gau asks,
"Wow, Simu Liu Talk @ Google. 1 of my best birthdays ever! Simu, what's the best
advice you have for people, especially AAPIs,
who are looking to get involved with
the film/TV industry?" SIMU LIU: All right, well,
first of all, happy birthday. That's awesome. Yeah-- what is the best advice
I have for people, especially AAPIs looking to get involved
in the film industry? I would say this-- learn to see who you
are, whether it's your ethnicity, all of the
things that make you you, your identity. Learn to see that
as a superpower rather than a hindrance. I've met so many
people and spoke to many people who
have said something along the lines of,
Simu, I'm really interested in TV and film but
there's just not that many-- I don't see that
many roles out there for people who look like
me, is it still worth it? Or, I'm feeling like I
really want to do this but it doesn't-- I don't think it's a good idea
because the opportunity isn't there. And how I've always
responded to that is, you have to make your own. You have to embody some sort
of an entrepreneurial spirit and learn to see the
lack of representation as an opportunity
rather than a hindrance. And it's something
that I've embodied from the beginning of
my career, and I've directed countless short
films and little things and tried to-- I've written as a screenwriter
in a Canadian TV writing room and all that. I don't know. It's just about finding
the opportunities, and then also finding
the network of people that will be your champions. And I found-- one of the
things that really struck me when I first arrived in
LA for the first time is just how strong
a community is here. And so many of my
friends are actors, we all are very, very
supportive of each other. We don't see this industry
as a zero-sum game. We see it as a rising tide-- YUL KWON: Piece of the pie. SIMU LIU: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's less about sharing a piece
of a pie that's very small, but it's about growing
that pie for everybody. And we're still learning as
a community how to do that, but I would say I've always
felt like my Asian-ness has been a super power,
an advantage, more than it's been a hindrance. YUL KWON: That's amazing. To your point, I
want to kind of just emphasize that I used to feel-- I don't know, many years ago-- that there was a
sense for Asian people who had made it that
it was a finite pie. There was a zero-sum game that
if I'm helping other people, I'm hurting myself. And the thing that I
feel like has changed, that mindset has
shifted, I felt like, over the last 5 to 10 years. We've seen it both in the
entertainment industry, as well as the corporate
industry, where we're now realizing that, no, no, we
can expand the pie together. We have to work together and
create more opportunities rather than trying to be that
one token Asian at the top. So yeah. SIMU LIU: To be fair, it was
probably true at the time. At the time, I want to
say even 10, 15 years ago, we're dealing with a system
that probably had very, very few Asian storytellers, whereas
now we have Jon Chu, "Crazy Rich Asians," you have Lulu
Wang, "The Farewell," Lee Isaac Chung with "Minari." I mean, there's so many-- it's such a breadth of
Asian American stories and Asian American
filmmakers and storytellers that it does feel like much more
of a realized reality today, rather than-- YUL KWON: Us all trying
to fight for that one role of the surprised
Asian guy, right? SIMU LIU: Exactly. Exactly. And I think as a
community, we had to go-- I mean, it's really
just growth stages. And we had to kind
of go through that, but thankfully, I think,
we're past that now and we'll continue to
kind of evolve and learn how to support one
another and be there. YUL KWON: Cool. All right, let's take
another question. Jane Fieldsend asks,
"What was the audition process like for Shang-Chi? How many rounds did
you have to go through? How did you find out
you landed the role?" SIMU LIU: So it was a
three-stage audition process, which actually-- surprisingly, there were not
as many steps as I thought. Tom Holland says that for
"Spider-Man," he went through, like, 12 or 13 auditions. But it was just three
for me, and the first one was just kind of a
self-taped submission. But we kind of
knew it was coming. It came in 2019 after they
had announced the movie, and we were like, great,
they're definitely going to read every single
Asian guy on the face of the Earth for this role. And so when I got the
call to submit my tape, I was like, great, I have
absolutely no shot whatsoever, but I'm just going to
throw it out there anyway. Ended up being two
scenes from "Good Will Hunting" because their script
was A, I think, not done, and B, highly, highly secretive. So they never make you
audition with scenes from the actual movie. So happened to be one of my
favorite movies of all time, so I went in there, I banged
out two audition scenes that I thought were pretty well
done, if I do say so myself, and then a few
weeks after that, I was asked to fly into LA to
meet Dustin for the first time. And still kind of
no expectations up until that point. I was like, yeah,
this is nice and all, but it's only going to be the
second stage in a very, very long process and I'm sure
lots of people got to meet him and it doesn't mean anything. So I fly down. It's a four or five
day break in the middle of shooting "Kim's
Convenience" and I meet him at Seraphim's casting
office, and I just remember we start doing these auditions. I'm doing this one scene,
and then he's like, OK, let's just play with it. He's like, throw your pages away
and let's just kind of vibe. And we had this
insane kind of moment where we felt like,
all of a sudden, we're speaking the same
language and kind of vibing off each other. And then that's when I
started to get really nervous. I walked out of that
casting office feeling like I was going to throw up
because I was like, oh, now that I actually feel
like I have a chance, I feel like I really have
a chance to mess it all up. And it's crazy that that's
what we think, but-- yeah, I just remember
feeling so anxious. And a few weeks after
that, we got the call to do a screen test,
and the screen test is the final round
of auditioning. It's basically kind
of like a work day. So you show up, you get
your hair and makeup done, you get a mic put on you. And you're on a soundstage,
so it's literally like you're going
to work, and you're workshopping these
scenes with the director over many, many hours. So it's not just like a you
show up, you do one scene, if you can't-- you get
one shot sort of deal. But I remember I flew to New
York to do that on a Sunday, and was cast on Tuesday. So two days after. I was in my room,
it's, like, 6:30 PM, I got a call from an
unknown number in Burbank, and it's Kevin Feige
on the other end and he's telling
me I got the role and he's saying, in four days
you've got to be at San Diego because we got to roll you out
in front of 8,000 fans at Hall H in the world. And honestly, it was the most
insane whirlwind Cinderella story thing I've
ever experienced. And so I was-- in literally four--
in the span of a week, I had gone from being
just a guy on a sitcom to Marvel superhero. And I was on stage with Angelina
Jolie and Chris Hemsworth and Scarlett Johansson,
Jeremy Renner. Like, all of the guys-- Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie-- and I was in my $14 Zara
outfit, and I was just like, holy crap,
what am I doing here? So I can't wait to
go back to Comic-Con when it's safe to do so. I think they're going to
try for one this year. But I can't wait to go back with
an actual movie under my belt. Because the last
time I was there, I was literally just a kid. And it'll be different the
second time, I promise that. YUL KWON: Yeah, man. We're all going to
be rooting for you. Yeah, seriously. Like, I can imagine what-- I actually can't imagine what
it would be like sitting there. I'm sure you were
thinking, like, oh man, I should have done a few more
push-ups before I went on stage next to Chris Hemsworth. SIMU LIU: Yeah, honestly, it
was so-- and then the craziest thing is-- I'll tell the story,
it won't take long. But Kevin had this big reception
afterwards at the Hard Rock Hotel where we were all
staying for everyone. And so I show up, and
it's literally everyone, they're in this little
banquet hall area, and I'm, again, so star struck. And by the way, everyone at
the MCU is so friggin' tall. Like, I'm not a short person
by any means, but you got-- one of the people that I spoke
to was Tom Hiddleston, who is, like, a giant, and
then Paul Bettany-- same, kind of really
lanky, tall dudes. Chris Hemsworth, of
course, tall and wide. Very, very tall people. So very intimidating. And then Kevin's like, OK,
everybody sit down for dinner, and everyone goes
to their tables. And I am, of course,
the new kid at school, so I'm literally
at this empty table and everyone else is sat
down at their little groups. And Dustin, for whatever
reason, I think, is sitting down with
some friends of his from another movie. But he's left me
out to dry, and I'm willing to put that in print. But I'm sitting at this
table with my manager, and we're just-- there's literally
seven empty seats, and we're just kind of
looking at each other like, well, it's the first
day, it's going to be that kind of
dinner, that's fine. And we kind of get ready to eat. In walks Angelina Jolie, and
she's got a team of people with her, she's got a couple of
her children with her as well. And she looks around,
and she's like, OK, there's no seats anywhere,
and then she looks at me. And I look up and I'm like-- got this look of pure terror
on my face because I'm like, I think I'm just about to have
dinner with Angelina Jolie. And she literally-- I
see her, she looks at me, she's like, yeah, OK. And then she walks over, sits
down, introduces herself. And I get the last
laugh as the new kid because I got to share a
meal with Angelina Jolie. YUL KWON: That's
pretty amazing, man. I'd be pinching myself. What was she like,
in a few words? Was she cool? SIMU LIU: Very-- such a sweet
person, such a devoted mother. Like, she was talking about
her kids and what they like. Her oldest son, Maddox,
is going to school abroad, and so she was talking about
her worries about that. And there was something
so human about her that I really, really loved. And it was actually really
easy to talk to her because I could connect with that. She just wanted to be
a mother to her kids. YUL KWON: OK, I think
we're almost out of time. Why don't we take
one more question. I think you said you can
over a little bit longer, are you good with that? SIMU LIU: We could go over
a little bit, for sure. YUL KWON: Cool. All right, you just made
Tiffany Eaton's day. OK. "With the rise of AAPI presence
in mainstream media, what tips would you tell the
younger generation who are currently struggling
with their identity as an AAPI?" SIMU LIU: Gosh. I would say this. I would say who you are is the
result of an incredible journey that either your parents
or your grandparents or your great grandparents took,
where they risked everything-- and I mean everything-- to come
to an entirely new country, learn a new language,
start a new life. And that gift that they
give you is your identity, your heritage, all of the
things-- the food, the culture. That's all-- it's a part of the
gift that your family gave you, and it's something that I wish
I had known when I was younger. Because I always saw it as
something to be ashamed of. And I would say my
one piece of advice would be don't be ashamed. Be proud of that gift
that your family gave you, and stand tall. And never feel like you
can't take up the space that somebody else
would take up, that you can't speak up
in a room of white people. And never feel like you have
to make way for other people, that you can stand firm and be
unapologetic in who you are, and be unapologetically Asian. YUL KWON: Oh man, Simu. You gave me the chills, man. I'm trying to imagine
me of, like, 10 or 11 or 12 listening to you
say those words right now. And I think would have
made a difference. SIMU LIU: Thanks, man. I know I'm stumbling
all over the place. YUL KWON: No, man. You're incredibly
clear and eloquent. I'm just-- yeah. All right, why don't we take
one more audience question then try to wrap things up. So do we have another one? Are we good? Otherwise I can ask you-- all right, here we go. Iris Guo-- "what advice
do you have for building an Asian community? I started an Asian
non-profit OpenMeal before and I am trying to
grow the community." SIMU LIU: Hmm. That's really a tough question. No easy ones today, huh? This is-- building an
Asian community is so-- I mean, I feel like we've
been doing a good job the last few years
and really using social media as an
agent of positive change in coming together. I think we have to get better
at disagreeing with one another in healthy and
constructive ways. I think-- I've seen a lot of
infighting among our community. And of course, the
Asian American community is very, very fragmented. We come from such a plethora
of different experiences-- some of us East Asian,
some of us Southeast Asian, some of the South
Asian, and from so many different generations
of immigrants. And so of course, we have a
lot of different access points. But I think we're
not monolithic, and we shouldn't act
like we're monolithic. And I've seen a lot
of times online, when we disagree
with each other, we do it in such a
vitriolic and violent way. And it almost seems like
we're tearing each other down. And I would say I hope
that we can get better at disagreeing constructively
and understanding, just because somebody represents
something that's slightly different from me,
I don't have to levy the entire burden of
representing all of Asian America on this one person. And certainly for me, too,
I can't be a representative of every single person. I'm certainly going
to do my best, but there's bound to be people
that disagree with the way that I think or the
messaging that I put out. And I think that
should be OK, and that should be part of a
healthy discussion, which I know in the age of Twitter and
everything is not exactly where our society is trending. But I think it's even more
important in that case to kind of introduce nuance
and introduce subtlety and more thoughtful
conversation rather than kind of just the snap quick. And good luck with your
good luck with your startup. I'll be keeping
an eye out on it. YUL KWON: I love that. I love that answer. It's different from, I
think, how I've heard-- that question gets asked a lot,
and that's a pretty unique take and, I think, really insightful. I mean, I feel like it's so much
easier to tear each other down than to build each other up. But to your point,
I think learning to be able to recognize
differences of opinion but still work together,
I think is so critical. Not just within
the AAPI community, but even with other allyship
with other communities as well. That's something
that we're all still learning and committed to. OK, so maybe two more questions. One is one that I heard on the
side, so let me just ask you. It's kind of a fun
question, and then I'll ask a serious question. So since Shang-Chi is a
fictional character and you, Simu, have no superhuman
powers in real life-- besides your extraordinary
good looks, of course-- if you could choose
one superpower to have, what would it be, and
what would you do with it? SIMU LIU: I'm sure
the good looks part-- I'm sure that wasn't a
part of the question, I'm sure you just added it in,
Yul, and I appreciate that. YUL KWON: Sorry, I
can't help but fanboy. SIMU LIU: My superpower. There have been--
there's a lot of ways to answer this question. I thought about it a lot. I think it would be to fly. I think it would be to
fly because you could say teleporting is faster,
but then you lose out on the journey and you lose out
of the experience of flight, which I think would just-- I mean, how could you ever get
tired of jumping into the air and just soaring? I think that would
be pretty incredible. And the things
that Superman does is he goes up into
the clouds, and that's kind of like his like alone
space, and it's kind of cool. I would love that feeling. I think it would be incredibly,
incredibly calming and serene up there. YUL KWON: Yeah,
that's a good one. I think mine would be I'd never
have to go to the bathroom again. That would be pretty awesome. SIMU LIU: See, it
would be awesome. It would make your life
marginally more convenient, but it wouldn't be like
this crazy, cool thing. I would encourage you
to reconsider that, Yul. That's far too pragmatic. YUL KWON: OK, last question. What is next for you
after "Shang-Chi?" What can we look
forward to next? SIMU LIU: Well, in
the immediate future, I just wrapped a movie
in the Dominican Republic called "Arthur the King,"
which is about a stray dog and an adventure racing
team in the Dominican. And I also adopted a dog from
the Dominican for that movie, so it was kind of like
life imitating art imitating life, which is great. I signed on to do another
movie in the fall, just kind of a romance novel type thing. Very, very Nicholas
Sparks-esque love triangle kind of situation. But I think in the far future
and in more broad strokes, I think I want to
continue to break down barriers of what people perceive
Asian Americans as capable of being. And I've been fortunate
enough to kind of be granted a platform
through this amazing movie. It's going to
feature martial arts. It's going to be super cool. But I also don't want
that to define me. I want to be an actor, I want to
be somebody who inhabits roles, regardless of what
the requirements are, whether it's martial arts
or jazz piano or crochet. I want to be able to
disappear into those roles and to portray them and to deal
with material and characters that people haven't seen before. And also, I want to be able to
step into the producer's chair and be able to greenlight
projects on my own and amplify other creatives of
color, storytellers, directors, writers who can speak to
parts of the Asian American experience that I
can't, and that I can use my platform
in some small way to kind of push their voices
forward and amplify that. YUL KWON: Simu,
we're out of time, but I want to thank you for
spending the past hour with us and with all the audience. And again, I just
can't express to you how proud I am of the
work that you're doing and how much we're
rooting for you. I mean, there are
a lot of people who could have been in
the position you are, but I feel just
lucky as a community that the person
who is in this role is someone like you, who is
so committed to thinking more broadly about the opportunities
and using this platform to speak and give a voice
to people who don't have it. So your success is our success. And I just want you to know
that we're all rooting for you. We're wishing you
the best of luck. And hope to see you
again on "Google Talks" maybe, after you've had the big
premiere or something like that and kind of see what your
life has been around then. But please-- we'll all be
following you on social media, we'll be rooting for you on
the next projects you do. SIMU LIU: I think it'd be great
if we could do this in person when it's safe. So let's absolutely table
that and do it again sometime. YUL KWON: Yeah. As long as you're not
disappointed in how short I actually am real life. SIMU LIU: That's
not a thing, Yul. You're going to be far more-- you're going to be handsome
and you're going to look tall, and it's going to be great. YUL KWON: Well,
I'll be impressed at how much better looking
you are in your life, and you'll be depressed. SIMU LIU: All right, all right. YUL KWON: All right, all right. All right, man. Simu, it was great
having you on here. And yeah, man, keep in
touch, and we'll all be cheering you on and
looking forward to the movie when it comes out. SIMU LIU: Thank you so much. Thank you. This was a lot of fun. YUL KWON: All right, man. Take care. All right. Bye, everybody SIMU LIU: Take care, guys. Bye. [MUSIC PLAYING]
Illi and Sunny Sied are quite something.
Did he address the mark walnut tweet thing?
thanks for posting this - Yul was badass in Survivor!