Simu Liuhas been busy.
But his latest project might be his biggest yet and his most personal.
WithWe Were Dreamersout now, Liu opened up to EW about sharing his family’s story with the world.
Simu Liu’s memoir ‘We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story’.William Morrow
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When did you start thinking about writing a book?
I know writing this was sort of an early pandemic project for you.
Have you ever thought of putting your thoughts together and writing a whole book?"
Simu Liu.Karwai Tang/Getty Images
I think I’m going to pass for now."
A lot of them were Asian American or Asian Canadian and came from immigrant backgrounds similar to mine.
I’m going to reach for it.
That, I feel like, is our story, quintessentially.
I know you went back and interviewed your parents about their lives.
What was that experience like to sit down with them?
If you’re anything like me, you just kind of roll your eyes.
I would hear these little pieces, but I never put it all together.
What were the things that were important to them?
Why did they make the decision to do the things that they did?
What propelled them from one place in life to the other?
Was there anything from your conversations with them that really surprised you?
There are little snippets here and there.
I didn’t expect my dad to tell me the story of the night that I was conceived.
There was this new restaurant that had just opened up in Beijing called Kentucky Fried Chicken.
It was something like an entire week’s salary, just to get a two-piece meal.
But my dad said he waited in line with my mom, and they had Kentucky Fried Chicken.
I was like, “How was it?”
and he was like, “It’s okay.”
He very specifically singled out coleslaw, like, “I don’t understand coleslaw.
We wanted to know what Americans eat, and we didn’t know what to expect.”
So imagine them getting a pile of coleslaw and being like, “Thisis what they eat?”
Have your parents read the book now?
Yeah, I mean they were so instrumental every step of the way.
It wasn’t just one long interview, either.
Every other week I would call them and be like, “Okay, I have more questions.”
And of course, when I completed the manuscript, they were the first people that I showed.
So that was the highest possible compliment.
They would’ve never written this book themselves.
Immigrant stories deserve to be celebrated because they’re the quintessentially American story or the quintessentially Canadian story.
What wisdom do you have to impart on people?"
What was it like to revisit that experience?
I still have all the emails that my superhero party boss would send me.
But I remember the good parts.
Once in a while you would really make a kid’s day.
But I definitely remember the bad ones as well.
They’re just little detectives that just want to get to the bottom of it.
Oftentimes, those kids had parents who were not around, either.
[Laughs]
Was there anything about writing this book that surprised you or that you weren’t expecting?
There was so much separating us: There was a cultural gap.
There was a language gap.
There was just so much conflict.
I don’t really shy away from that in the book.
I was very impressed by that.
We want to encourage families to make a better choice.
And hopefully, we can let the parents of those kids know there’s another way as well.
