Though he auditioned four times, he didn’t get the role. In fact, he was told that he didn’t have the “It factor,” which was a “crushing blow” for the actor.
“It felt like someone was telling me that I just wasn’t good enough, that I just wasn’t likable. I didn’t have that thing that made people want to watch it. It was at a time that was very difficult for me, I was trying to figure out whether I could be the lead character or whether I could only be a supporting character for my entire career,” he said at the time.
Well, in a recent interview with BuzzFeed, Simu shared how he feels about the whole thing now that he’s found commercial success.
“You know, it’s really funny. Hollywood is such an industry of broken telephone. And things get misconstrued, misinterpreted all the time. For whatever reason, that was a piece of feedback that – true or not true – was shared to me. And it was, I think, the exact thing that I needed to hear at the time,” he told BuzzFeed.
“So, regardless of whether it was true or not – I’m now convinced that it never actually happened – it forced me to look inwardly and to say, ‘I think it’s time to stop trying to be someone else’s idea of a leading man.’ And to start trying to figure out what the things were about me that made me special and exciting and worthy.”
“And that served me very well during the audition process for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings because I knew going in that I was not the tallest, or the most buff, or the best at martial arts. But what I could be was the best fit for that character, with the best and most compelling portrayal of the humanity of that character.”
Simu also shared his advice for young creatives who are similarly told they don’t have what it takes.
“Prove them wrong because they are. There’s space for everyone in this world, in this industry. The clearer you are with yourself, and the more honest you are with yourself about what you bring and what makes you special, that’s when you start to take control of your own voice. That’s when you begin to own your own narrative.”
“And so much of this industry is aspirational; that’s understandable. We’re raised on the movies and the songs that we love growing up, and there’s an element of wanting to emulate that in everything that we do. That’s the reason why so many of us fell in love with the industry in the first place. But at the same time, you really have to ask yourself, ‘What do you personally bring? What are you going to be about that’s different than what anyone else has been about over the course of history?’ That one thing that makes you special is gonna take you far,” he concluded.
You can read the full Simu Liu interview here.