Actor Simu Liu took to Threads on Sunday with a passionate post calling attention to Hollywood’s “backslide” regarding Asian representation in its films, sharing several social media posts about Asian actors facing challenges in landing leading roles.
“Put some Asians in literally anything right now,” he expressed. “The amount of backslide in our representation onscreen is f—ing appalling. Studios think we are risky.”
Liu, known for his role in Marvel’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” cited several acclaimed movies featuring Asian actors, such as “Past Lives,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” and “Crazy Rich Asians.”
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The Marvel actor contended that the success of recent films with Asian leads disproves the notion that casting Asian actors poses a financial risk.
“Every single one a financial success. No Asian actor has ever lost a studio even close to 100 million dollars but a white dude will lose 200 million TWICE and roll right into the next tentpole lead,” he added. “We’re fighting a deeply prejudiced system. And most days it SUCKS.”
This wasn’t the first instance of Liu publicly addressing perceived anti-Asian racism within the entertainment industry. In 2023, the Marvel personality used Twitter to criticize a contentious celebrity look-alike camera comparison from the NBA’s Celebrity All-Star game, which some felt perpetuated the problematic stereotype that “all Asians look alike.”
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“I had a great time but this wasn’t cool,” he tweeted about the event, sharing a post displaying a screenshot of the fan alongside an image of himself on the jumbotron.
Many argued that the fan bore little resemblance to the Marvel star, who was 33 years old at the time.
Liu elaborated further in the thread, clarifying that his issue was with the cameraman rather than the NBA. “To be perfectly clear the entire org and ops team surrounding all-star have been nothing but absolutely stellar to myself and all my friends. This was just one person with a camera. And no disrespect to my man in the videotron either! He’s gorgeous, we just don’t look alike.”
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The NBA jumbotron controversy underscored the actor’s broader concerns about the perception of Asian entertainers. Liu elaborated on these sentiments during a recent interview with Variety.
As Variety noted earlier this month, the actor “has become known for speaking up on social media against right-leaning politics,” and the backlash he faces for expressing his views doesn’t seem to concern him.
“I probably should be more scared of it,” he shared with the outlet. “I just feel like there’s something about the internet that makes people just crazy. There’s something about the publicness of it and where people love being the guy to put someone else down [or] put an entire group of people down. I am so not for that energy.”
Fox News Digital’s Taylor Penley assisted in the creation of this report.
