Simu Liu‘s first brush with Marvel was being extorted by Spider-Man during his first trip to Hollywood.
Now a star in the MCU since playing the titular superhero in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Liu recalled the irony of being broke and getting ripped off by a Marvel character to Chelsea Handler while she was guest hosting on Jimmy Kimmel Live!:
“My very first trip down to Hollywood I had no money to my name. I was meeting a manager that I had never met. We were communicating via email, and he was like, ‘Yeah, I guess I’ll sign you.’ I didn’t have any money to get a hotel. I booked myself a hostel right off of Hollywood Boulevard, ’cause that was the only real neighborhood in LA that I knew.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, I want to be in Hollywood.’ And then I show up to Hollywood Boulevard, and I’m at TCL Chinese Theatre, I’m having a good time, and this guy dressed up as Spider-Man shows up and he’s like, ‘You want a picture?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, cool, the people in LA are so nice.’ And so he takes my phone, he snaps some pictures of me, then he snaps some pictures of us in a selfie, and then he’s like, ‘That’ll be $20 for Spider-Man.'”
Fast forward to 2021 and Liu made millions off the company that created Spider-Man.
Not only did he get his revenge with Marvel itself, but he talked that “Spider-Man” down to $10.
Stories like this one can be found in Liu’s memoir, We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story, which is on digital and physical bookshelves across the world.
