By the time Shang-Chi star Simu Liu walked onto the set of Avengers: Doomsday, he’d already defied every expectation that came before him — from immigrant kid to accountant to global superhero. But even now, years after joining Hollywood’s biggest franchise, Liu admits some MCU moments still feel surreal.
Speaking with Collider, Liu opened up about what it was like to finally share the screen with Robert Downey Jr., who’s returning to the MCU as Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday. For Liu, that introduction wasn’t just another day on set — it was a lifetime of fandom meeting the man who started it all.
“I had many of those moments. I remember meeting Downey for the first time. That is such a pinch-me moment in and of itself, because I’d almost met everyone else around him at some juncture or other, but I had never actually met him, and it’s very fitting,” Liu said.
“I was like, ‘Oh, I’m actually very glad that this is the first time that we’re meeting,’ because otherwise it would have felt anticlimactic if I met him at, like, the Golden Globes, and then I’m like, ‘Okay, well, I’ll see you at work.’ This was a very momentous meeting where we met, and then we were like, ‘We’re about to work together. That’s fantastic.’ I got to say how much his work has meant to me, and shared some really kind words, and he was really sweet. That was the first one.”
It’s a full-circle moment for an actor who once wrote about losing his way — and finding it — in his memoir We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story. Long before the Ten Rings, Liu’s story began in Harbin, China, before his family immigrated to Canada, where he studied business, worked at Deloitte, and tried to follow a safer path before pursuing acting.
Read more: Simu Liu On Why He Will “Never Get An Opportunity to Play Bond”
“We didn’t speak for a very long time,” he said of the period when he told his parents he wanted to quit accounting to act. “Whenever we did, it was just very, very tense. I remember this one time very vividly. I had to literally get up in the middle of dinner and just leave because it just wasn’t happening for us.”
Only when he landed his first major series role on Blood and Water did things begin to shift. The crime drama — created for a Chinese Canadian audience with dialogue in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin — forced him to step up linguistically and emotionally.
“It was my very first series regular role, and the role called for a lot of Mandarin speaking… I kind of roped my parents into the preparation process. Just imagine how hard that ask was, but I needed somebody. My dad, very begrudgingly, was on the phone with me late at night,” he said. “I think it was the first time that my dad realized, ‘Oh, this is a job. This is an actual vocation that takes a lot of work and preparation.’”
Those late nights — just as much as the Marvel training montages that would come later on Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings — were the foundation for the discipline Liu carries now. On set for Avengers: Doomsday, that same mindset resurfaced as he found himself working alongside the actor who practically built the MCU.
“Those pinch-me moments happened in the moments in between, because I feel like when we’re on set, and we’re in character and ready to go, everyone’s generally pretty focused,” he explained.
“For me, it was very imperative that I put that fan side away. I compartmentalized that side of me because I was like, ‘I have a job to do. I have a job to do, and the worst thing that I can do right now is be a fan. I’m not a fan. I’m a coworker.’ As ridiculous as that sounds, or as ridiculous as it sounded to me at the time, I was like, ‘No. I have to treat these people as my equals, even though I’m literally like a little boy right now.’”
Even off-camera, Liu’s “little boy” excitement occasionally broke through — especially when he found himself welcomed into Downey’s infamous on-set base, playfully dubbed Downey Land.
Read more: ‘Oh Mary!’: Simu Liu to Make Broadway Debut in February
“But the moments between, Downey famously has this convoy of trailers and this whole area in base camp that we affectionately called Downey Land,” Liu said with a grin.
“And I remember getting invited to Downey Land for the first time and just showing up in this tent, and it’s all this beautiful Andy Warhol-esque artwork, except all the characters are Downey. I mean, he’s so self-aware.”
Inside, he found a lunch experience unlike anything he’d known before.
“So, he greeted me, and then I didn’t realize that Downey Land has its own chefs, but I had brought my set lunch, and he was like, ‘Oh, no, no, no. We don’t do that here.’ The chefs had come and laid out this full buffet, and I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll put this away.’ And then just the people walking through, I was like, ‘I cannot believe I’m having lunch with these people.’”
It’s a scene both absurd and human — the ultimate metaphor for Liu’s journey so far. From being told to “keep his head down” as a day player in Canadian productions to sitting among Marvel icons, he’s learned when to listen, when to speak up, and when to simply appreciate the moment.
“People with their costumes in these various states, some people in full costumes, still,” he said. “Some people have really uncomfortable costumes, so they like to strip down, or it’s three pieces, and they strip out of two. It’s all of us just kind of sitting around and talking about our lives and our careers. Those are priceless, irreplaceable memories that I’ll have for the rest of my life.”
View this post on Instagram
Liu’s road to Avengers: Doomsday was far from handed to him. He’s now co-starring in and executive producing Peacock’s sci‑fi spy series The Copenhagen Test, while also building out a producing slate that includes projects like Seven Wonders and Sleeping Dogs. That behind-the-camera ambition can be traced back to his time in the Blood and Water writers’ room, and to early conversations with creators like Wong Fu Productions’ Philip Wang about making your own opportunities.
“Maybe my superpower isn’t that I can just lean back, but my superpower is that I can do more and I can work hard,” Liu said.
“It’s that immigrant mentality coming full circle. I’m excited for the future. I think you’re going to see a lot more of me, from a pretty surreal place.”
For now, that surreal place is back where it all began — on a Marvel set. Only this time, instead of watching Iron Man save the world from the sidelines, Liu is standing right beside Robert Downey Jr. in Avengers: Doomsday.
Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters in December 2026.
