SIMU LIU is known as a superhero. His breakthrough film, 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, is one of the genre’s best in recent years, mixing an exciting coming-of-age origin story with themes of identity, father/son relationships, and finding family in places where one may not particularly have been looking for it. Oh, and he kicks a whole lot of ass—via some wonderfully-choreographed martial arts moves—all over the place, particularly so in one early scene aboard a moving bus.
His next major role, in writer-director Greta Gerwig’s endlessly hyped Barbie, would seem to be something of a swerve from that. Instead of the powerful Shang-Chi—or, as he’s referred to during a hilariously meta guest appearance in Max’s The Other Two, “Marvel’s Simu Liu”—he’s playing Ken. As in Barbie and Ken. The movie depicts several notable faces as various Kens (including Ryan Gosling and Kingsley Ben-Adir); Liu’s is a Ken with great hair and a rivalry with Gosling’s bleach blonde.
From the vantage point of a typical 10-year-old boy, these roles couldn’t possibly be more different. A Marvel superhero? And Ken?!? But Liu insists that there’s more shared DNA than one might initially think.
“It’s all choreography, right?” he asks over Zoom in late June. “Whether you’re fighting people on a bus or doing a multi-person dance sequence in a cul-de-sac in Barbie Dream World. It’s cool to trade the gloves and the pads for a dance studio with a ballet bar.”
In fact, there was just about as much preparation to transform into Ken as there was to transform into Shang-Chi. That process was led by trainer Dave Higgins, who notably helped Kumail Nanjiani get… well, as ripped as Kumail Nanjiani is today.
Gerwig was pretty lenient in her idea of what a Ken presented as in her movie; there were no hard and fast rules about what a Ken had to look like. But she did have one major directive: all the Kens had to work out together.
“It was just like, let’s work out, because that’s what I think ‘Kenergy’ is about. Kens would really care about that,” he says. “So, just as an excuse to bring us all together and get us doing man things, Greta put us in a gym together, and we worked out every day leading up to the start of principal photography. And it was really fun.”
Working out wasn’t all it took to transform into Ken either—and that’s not all Liu has been up to. Men’s Health caught up with the past and future superhero to talk Barbie, guest starring on The Other Two, and his eventual return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Men’s Health: I’m a big fan of The Other Two. Can you explain how your self-referential Season 3 guest appearance came to be?
Simu Liu: The common denominator for us was Lorne Michaels and SNL. Lorne, obviously, is an exec producer of The Other Two, and there’s a lot of SNL alumni writing on that show. And my hosting on SNL kind of prompted that story.
They approached me asking if I wanted to play a version of myself that was Molly Shannon’s boyfriend… and I was like, Absolutely, yes. It just ended up being such an amazing experience.
Have you had an uptick in people calling you “Marvel’s Simu Liu,” or some variation of “Daddy”?
I’m not being called “Daddy” any more or less than I used to, which, I don’t know how to feel about that. It’s pretty much a steady stream. And then yeah, Marvel’s Simu Liu… that’s hilarious. Not directly to my face, no. But I’m sure it happens all the time.
Let’s switch gears to Barbie. This is one of the most exciting, hyped, and anticipated releases of the summer. When you first signed on, did you have any idea it would be such an event?
I knew it was one of the most special scripts that I had ever read. This was written by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, some of the most gifted storytellers of our time, and, yeah, from the moment I read the script, I knew I had to be a part of it. And in any which way, I ended up auditioning for it. It was the first and only audition I’ve done post- Shang-Chi.
I was desperate, desperate to be a part of it. It was so smart and so special. But that was, of course, before I saw any of the sets, before I saw a second of footage, before any of the marketing around it. And it’s been such a joy to go on that whole journey, from getting to London, where we were shooting the bulk of the movie, seeing the sets come up for the first time, the Barbie Dream houses and all the different sets that were so amazingly designed. And now to be starting to see the marketing rollout—it’s been really exciting watching the world following along and being so wonderfully confused about what this movie is. It’s exciting to be finally at the point where we’re ready to show it to them, and I think it’s gonna be really surprising when they watch it.
When you found out you were going to get a chance to play Ken—who historically is just a white dude—were you surprised? And what’s your read on the movie’s effort to diversify from what Barbie and Ken have been in the past?
I don’t necessarily think I was cast because I was Asian. But I think it’s really important—and I think it was important to Greta— that Barbie Land be a place that reflected all of the people who grew up playing with Barbies, who come in all shapes, sizes, gender expressions, whatever have you. Barbie Land is, in its essence, representative of the real world in a way I think is important: that there’s an element of equality of diversity, not just in ethnicity, but in body types and all sorts of different variables and types of human being. It’s really exciting get to be a part of that conversation.
I think we’re really challenging a lot of things. We’re challenging patriarchy, challenging heteronormativity, challenging gender norms. Challenging the gendering of the color pink. All of which I think is really necessary, and really, really cool.
Which of your fellow Kens was the best workout partner?
Scott [Evans] was a great workout partner. We would work out, and then go play table tennis. We had this long-lasting table tennis rivalry that I think, to this day, we haven’t settled.
And then I would say Ryan [Gosling]. Ryan was the best inspiration, because he was the most disciplined. I could not beat Ryan to the gym. He was always there earlier than me and he always stayed later. It just speaks to the discipline that this guy has, and I think it really pays off in the movie. He’s got a couple scenes where you get to see a bit of that Ken body, and it’s pretty shredded.
Did you get to riff or improvise at all, or was everything pretty tightly scripted?
What I really appreciated about Greta and her on-set direction was that it always did feel like a conversation. Now, that doesn’t mean that anything we improvised would be better than the script, because the script was pretty good already. But there are definitely little ad-libs and things that made it into the final cut.
Ryan and I definitely got to do a lot together, because our relationship is so much of that kind of passive-aggressive, off-handed jabs. Just very veiled jabs at one another, and it was such a delicious dynamic to play. He’s obviously just an incredibly talented performer, but from the first rehearsal we ever did, I was like… he absolutely blew me away. And I was like, Oh my god, I’m really gonna have to bring it for the shoot, because this guy is going to eat my lunch if I’m not fully 100% prepared for anything. It was such a joy to get to play that dynamic.
Were there any moments in that dynamic that surprised you?
Ryan is such a natural improviser, and he improvises in so many different ways, sometimes with words, but also he could say the exact same words on a script but in totally different and fresh and exciting ways. It just really forced anybody playing opposite him to be fully present, and to listen. Because if you didn’t, you might miss something really incredible he was doing that would give you then, like, something to react off of or respond to, and I think that’s when acting is the least stale and the most exciting—when neither person goes into a scene fully knowing what’s going to happen. And with Ryan, I never knew what was gonna happen. That’s what both excited and scared me the most.
Your Shang-Chi director, Destin Daniel Cretton, is going to be directing Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, so I’m going to guess you’re in it. Obviously everything is kind of paused with the WGA strike right now, but I’m curious if you’ve heard anything on the Marvel front?
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna be in it too. Beyond that, I really don’t know, and I don’t want to know before it’s absolutely ready. If there’s anything I’ve learned in this in this industry, especially with Marvel, it’s that things are things are changing, always in flux, and you really can’t be sure that something is going to happen until you’re on set and you’re about to do the scene. Even then, scenes get reshot, things get retooled, elements get added in post-production with visual effects and everything. So in between, it’s been a really fulfilling journey for me to get to do projects like Barbie—which are separate from that identity of Shang-Chi—and to really get to spread my wings as an artist.
But if and when that call comes in… of course, a sequel is going to happen. Of course, Kang Dynasty is going to happen. When that call comes, I will happily show up, read whatever I need to read, do whatever I need to prepare. But until then, I think the less I know the better.
Building on that—whenever your next Marvel appearance does happen, there’s now a whole new wave of characters who have been introduced. Is there anybody in particular that you most want to work with from this current Marvel star group?
I’ll single out [Ms. Marvel star] Iman Vellani. First of all, she’s a fellow Canadian. She’s just so great. The few times I’ve met her, and all the conversations we’ve had, she’s just such a wonderful human being. I’m so excited to get to play opposite any and all of the amazing people that have been introduced into the universe. But she’s just… I don’t know, I guess she’s really just stuck out to me as someone who just absolutely loves it, and loves the world, loves the position that she’s been put in.
It kind of, I guess, reminds me of myself in a way—she was such a big Marvel fan from before too. And it’s just surreal to her too, every bit of a as much of a dream come true for her as it is for me.
July is going to be such an amazing month for movies. We’ve got Barbie, obviously. But also Oppenheimer and Mission: Impossible. Tom Cruise endorsed the Barbie and Oppenheimer double feature. What’s your approach going to be with so many great movies coming out?
I think I’m gonna be in the theater a lot. I’m so excited. I mean, I love being in the theater—there’s just something to a night out, sitting in a dark room, massive speakers all around you, a bucket of popcorn, soda. You just can’t beat it.
It’s really incredible that you’ve got so many movies that are so different, some of which are coming out on the same day. It just means that you’ve got to make a double feature out of it. You’ve got to watch one and then the other. Whether it’s Barbie first and then Oppenheimer, or you watch Oppenheimer first, then do a little palate cleanse with Barbie. There’s no wrong way to do it. I think the only wrong move would be to miss out.
I just grew up always such a fan and a lover of cinema, and going to the movies. My hope is that this month of July really reignites everyone’s love of going to movies, and going to the cinema—grabbing a bucket of popcorn and just watching something incredible.
This interview has been condensed for content and clarity.
Evan is the culture editor for Men’s Health, with bylines in The New York Times, MTV News, Brooklyn Magazine, and VICE. He loves weird movies, watches too much TV, and listens to music more often than he doesn’t.
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