Simu Liu
Born in Harbin, China to parents who overcame significant competition to study engineering at Beijing University, he eventually emigrated with them to Canada, where they worked dishwashing jobs as they studied and eventually became aerospace engineers. In his memoir We Were Dreamers, he describes growing up with “tiger parenting” and the pressure to be “the star child, the studious academic, the obedient son.”
It wasn’t easy: He also recounts physical abuse and belittlement. “I generally think it’s better to bring these moments into the light and talk about them. It wasn’t to make my parents look bad, but it was to say: ‘We were an imperfect family and this is what happened to us. And we’re telling our story in the hope that other families will not make the same mistakes,'” he told The Guardian in May 2022.
Liu eventually became an accountant at Deloitte, but after he was laid off, decided to pursue his dream of a career as a stuntman and actor. Things worked out phenomenally well: He’s one of the most in-demand young actors, and appeared with Margot Robbie in 2023’s biggest film, Barbie.
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