S14, Ep1 How To Fail: Simu Liu

How To Fail With Elizabeth Day

Sony Music

Society & Culture

4.8 • 9.4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 May 2022

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We're back, baby! And I thought I'd open this new season with a bona fide SUPERHERO. Because that's just how we roll.

My guest today is Simu Liu - the first Asian superhero in the Marvel cinematic universe and the star of the 2019 movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. He also appeared in season 4 of Selling Sunset, where Chrishell tried to sell him a house (arguably the real achievement, amirite?).

Simu was born in China. His parents were products of Mao's Cultural Revolution and ended up emigrating to Canada. Simu was raised by his grandparents for the first four years of his life before being taken to Canada, where he couldn't speak the language. It was an early lesson in resilience - one he would never forget.

Simu joins me to talk about this, as well as his failed accountancy career, a formative heartbreak and failing to get a part in Crazy Rich Asians. Along the way we discuss 'the white gaze' and marginalisation in Hollywood, the dark days of his adolescence when he rebelled against his parents restrictive (and sometimes abusive) behaviour and...well, menstruation. Plus: how he's still friends with Chrishell and what it's like filming Greta Gerwig's Barbie.

I adored our conversation because Simu came so willing to own every single one of his failures. His experience of heartbreak from a straight, male perspective was fascinating to me. And he's so smart I could just listen to him for days.

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Simu's memoir, We Were Dreamers, is published next week! Pre-order it here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/we-were-dreamers/simu-liu/9780008546472

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How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. To contact us, email [email protected]

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Social Media:

Elizabeth Day @elizabday

How To Fail @howtofailpod

Simu Liu @simuliu

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day. The podcast that celebrates the things
0:19.2	that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding
0:25.5	that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger because learning how to fail in life actually means
0:32.2	learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day and every
0:38.4	week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. My guest today is a failed
0:45.4	accountant turned superhero. In 2012 he was laid off from his job at Deloitte. By 2019 he was
0:53.2	starring in Shang Chi and the legend of the Ten Rings, making him the first Asian superhero in the
1:00.1	Marvel Cinematic Universe. He also appeared in season 4 of Selling Sunset where Khrushal tried to
1:06.2	sell him a house which is arguably the real achievement. As origin stories go it's already a good one,
1:13.5	but it gets even more impressive when you learn that Simu Liu was born in Harbin, China and raised by
1:20.4	his grandparents, while his mother and father who both survived Mao's cultural revolution forged a
1:26.5	life for their family in Canada. When Liu was four his father to all intents and purposes a stranger
1:33.3	turned up to take him to Ontario. Liu spoke no English and struggled to settle in. It was an early
1:41.1	lesson in resilience, one he would never forget. Liu excelled at school but was always drawn more
1:47.8	towards performance much to the consternation of his disciplinarian parents and yet their work
1:54.1	ethic ended up serving him well. When Liu decided to turn his hand to acting he went to every audition
2:00.7	no matter how small and hustled just as they had. At the age of 30 he was rewarded with the
2:07.8	Marvel role that would catapult him into Hollywood stardom. His memoir We Were Dreamers is published
2:15.5	next week. In it Liu writes, the unknown is always scary but not nearly as much as waking up one
2:23.6	morning realizing you have wasted your precious life in pursuit of someone else's idea of success.
2:30.8	I choose the unknown every time. Simu Liu, welcome to How To Fail.
2:37.7	It is so lovely to be here Elizabeth, thank you so much for having me.
	...

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