Sandra Oh hailed her fellow Asian Canadian actor and 'Shang-Chi' star Simu Liu as 'our superhero': 'He's been on a path that no Chinese Canadian has walked before'

• Chinese Canadian actor Simu Liu was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2022.
• Liu played the titular superhero in Marvel's "Shang-Chi," becoming the franchise's first Asian superhero.

Actress Sandra Oh praised fellow Asian Canadian actor Simu Liu, saying the "Shang-Chi" star is a "part of the first generation of Asian Americans and Canadians to reach true stardom."

Liu, who played the titular superhero in Marvel's "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2022. The Chinese Canadian actor initially found success on Canadian television sitcom "Kim's Convenience," and went on to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the franchise's first Asian superhero.

Oh, who was named on the Time 100 list in 2019, penned the profile for Liu for the Time 100 list, saying she was excited to see Liu walk "on a path that no Chinese Canadian has walked before."

"I was so pleased to see Simu exercise his comedy chops, his fighting skills, his gravitas. I love his ability to poke fun at himself," the Emmy Award-winning actress wrote. "And, of course, the guy looks great in a suit."

"Simu has been working hard to get through closed doors, and now he wants to hold those doors open for others," she added.

Liu has been vocal about diversity and representation in Hollywood, particularly in the projects he has been a part of. Last year, the actor wrote a lengthy Facebook post about his experience on-set for "Kim's Convenience," saying the Asian actors on the show were never given the chance to pitch stories to the "overwhelmingly white" writers and producers of the show.

"I was... growing increasingly frustrated with the way my character was being portrayed and, somewhat related, was also increasingly frustrated with the way I was being treated," Liu wrote in the post.

He added that he thought that everyone would have a say in their characters' development on the show, but "this was not the case on our show, which was doubly confusing because our producers were overwhelmingly white and we were a cast of Asian Canadians who had a plethora of lived experiences to draw from and offer to writers."

Ahead of the theatrical release of "Shang-Chi," Disney CEO BOb Chapek called the film's release model "an interesting experiment," to which Liu appeared to have a response on social media.

"We are not an 'interesting experiment,'" Liu wrote. "We are the underdog; the underestimated. We are the ceiling-breakers. We are the celebration of culture and joy that will persevere after an embattled year. We are the surprise."

He ended the social media posts by calling on fans to see the film in theaters in early September. The film ended up grossing nearly $30 million at the box office on opening day, which at the time was the third best opening day amid the pandemic, and passed $400 million at the global box office overall.

In the Time 100 profile, Oh hailed Liu for being outspoken about the shortcomings of the industry and condemning anti-Asian hate, which was on the rise since the onset of the pandemic.

"You see him doing that through the way he speaks out against hateful violence, his openness about his own experiences of isolation and discrimination, his professional choices," she wrote. "He's our superhero."