Meet Simu Liu: the actor playing Marvel’s first Asian superhero Shang-chi is battling global stereotypes
The Chinese-Canadian plays a martial-arts master in 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which Marvel hopes will be an Asian Black Panther

This hotel room in West Hollywood, dimly lit with the curtains drawn, shows no signs of film-star excess. No half-full bottles of flat champagne, no overflowing ashtrays. No powder-flecked mirrors on the countertops. No cracks in the plasma television. Just some fresh clothes folded neatly over a chair and, on the table in front of us, a Nintendo Switch and a big bag of sour candies.
And anyway, its occupant isn’t exactly a film star. At least not yet. Thirty-year-old Simu Liu clears off a spot on the couch and apologises for the mess. This room – what a TripAdvisor review might deem “perfectly adequate” – has been his home for the past few months. The only clues Liu has spent that time intensively training are empty Muscle Milk cartons strewn around the place. That and the muscles themselves, defined but not ostentatious under a form-fitting shirt.
As we talk, Liu is the consummate Canadian: welcoming, warm and unfailingly polite. He seems relaxed. Rested. There’s little to indicate this sweet, earnest Torontonian may soon count himself among the most famous actors in the world.
“Kids are going to dress up like me for Halloween,” he beams.
We’ll have to wait to confirm this, but the prediction is not outlandish. Liu has been tapped for the eponymous lead role in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, due out in 2021: the Marvel cinematic universe is about to get its first Asian superhero.