Marvel’s Shang-Chi Star Simu Liu Wants to Play a Gray Jedi in Star Wars

Fans already know that Simu Liu, star of the upcoming Marvel Studios film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, can do a stellar impersonation of Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars. Liu has a different kind of character in mind if he ever joins the Star Wars universe in an official capacity. Liu spoke to Gary Whitta on the latest episode of the Animal Talk video show. Liu shared his love for the Star Wars universe, especially the old expanded universe, and says he wants to play a gray Jedi. Liu isn’t shy about expressing how much Star Wars means to him and how badly he wants to play a roll in that franchise.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it, I definitely want to be in the Star Wars universe,” Liu says. “I make no secret about it. I also make no secret about tweeting random things into the universe that I absolutely don’t actually think will come true, but I’m going to do it anyway. I’m a huge Star Wars fan. When I first came to Canada, it was one of the things that I latched onto right away, probably because I didn’t speak a lot of English, but then just the visuals of Star Wars were so compelling and just sucked me in right away, and I became the biggest fan of not only the movies but the whole expanded universe that went around it… I loved the whole gamut of Star Wars game leading up to the latest one, Fallen Order, but the [Knight of the Republic]s, X-Wing, Rogue Squadron, deep cuts, Jedi Knight I, Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, Battlefront, everything. Star Wars games have been such a huge part of my life.

“I used to want to be a Jedi so badly, not for the superpowers but for the moral unrighteousness, which I’ve since, in the past couple of years, I’ve really been thinking about what it means to be a Jedi and rewatching the prequels as well. I’ve kind of changed my stance on Jedi a little bit. They used to be these paragons of society and now, I just kind of feel like they’re really uptight and they’re really arrogant and they that a Jedi should not desire power but then they’re all up in the Senate’s affairs, and I don’t know. When I rewatched the sequels, and you hear Luke saying it’s time for the Jedi to end. I actually really agree with that.”

The conversation about the expanded universe and the Jedi leads to the big question of what kind of character Liu would like to play. His answer makes a lot of sense, given what he had already said about Star Wars.

“I’ve thought about it clearly way too much: gray Jedi,” he says. “Neither Jedi nor Sith, perhaps raise a Jedi but becomes disillusioned. We know the protagonist of The Clone Wars is Ahsoka Tano, who many consider to be a gray Jedi and is fully a gray Jedi by the team we see her in Rebels as well. She’s been outside the order living on her own, doing her own thing, and I feel like that’s where there’s so much to mine that the cinematic universe of Star Wars hasn’t really gone into the nitty-gritty of, these people who don’t observe light side or dark side, who aren’t caught up in the affairs or the illusions of grandeur, trying to exert power in the universe but just, I’ve become very disillusioned, and I want to just go and live my life, and I hate everything around me, but I also am a good person at heart. So, where is the room in the Star Wars universe for that character?”

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings opens in theaters on February 12th, 2021.

Phot by Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images