Simu Liu Reveals Biggest Surprise About Working With Marvel Studios

Last year’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings helped make Simu Liu into a bonafide superstar, with the actor starring in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s action blockbuster. With a sequel to the film currently in the works, it’s safe to say that we will be seeing more of Liu’s take on Shang-Chi in the future, especially as Phases 4 and 4 of Marvel Studios’ slate continue on. In a recent interview with Variety, Liu spoke about the experience of working with Marvel on Shang-Chi, and revealed that the collaborative process of working on the film was what surprised him the most.

“I went in expecting, with a machine like Marvel, that I was just going to be a tiny little cog in the wheel,” Liu explained. “So I was surprised by how much I was asked to provide feedback, at kind of every opportunity. And then you get used to it and you show up and you’re like, ‘I have ideas. Let’s get ready to work.’ For an actor, there’s nothing more fulfilling.”

While there’s no telling exactly what shape the Shang-Chi sequel will take, Liu has been open about his hopes for the project, telling ComicBook.com late last year that he’s excited to explore the film’s roster of characters even further.

“I guess I wasn’t the most surprised, given everything that had happened. I was so relieved to hear that he [Cretton] has been confirmed to come back,” Liu explained. “Again, that’s not a surprise but it’s just so good to feel the engine turning again like, ‘Great! We get to tell more stories again,’ while delving deeper into the characters and providing more of those badass fight sequences.”

Marvel Studios boss Keivn Feige teased more Shang-Chi as recently as August of last year when he revealed executives were watching the response to the film awfully close while determining potential future stories to tell.

“The early reactions to the characters and to [Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings] itself gives me great hope that that people will want to see more of these characters,” Feige told ComicBook in August. “We certainly have many ideas of where to take them and where to put them. What’s so fun, we know the movie’s working when it’s not just the title character that people ask about, but it is the co-stars or the supporting players that people ask about.”

“And in this movie in particular,” added Feige, “that’s heartening because we think they’re spectacular, and we think they have great potential in the future.”

What do you think of Simu Liu’s comments about working with Marvel Studios on the Shang-Chi franchise? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!