Simu Liu slams movie studios for ‘stepping back’ on Asian representation

Simu Liu does not hold back from criticizing what he describes as a “setback” in Asian representation in Hollywood.

The actor shared his thoughts on Threads on Friday, in response to a post calling for Hollywood to put more Asian men in romantic lead roles.

“Put Asians in literally anything right now,” Liu responded. “The extent of the decline in our representation on screen is appalling. studios think we are “risky”.

THE barbie The star then highlighted several films released in recent years that focus on the Asian experience – to the pain, The farewell, Past lives, Everything everywhere at the same time, Rich and crazy Asians And Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (in which Liu starred) – adding: “Everyone [was] financial success. »

“No Asian actor has ever lost a studio, even close to $100 million, but a white guy will lose 200 million TWICE and go straight to number one,” he continued. “We’re fighting a deeply biased system…and most of the time, it sucks.”

The Threads post Liu was responding to also included comments from Manny Jacinto, who recently starred as Lindsay Lohan’s on-screen love interest in Weirdest Friday. While some fans pleaded for Jacinto to star in more romantic comedies after seeing the film, he previously said ScreenRant that it seemed like many creatives in Hollywood had other ideas, because since then he’s been “mostly getting dad roles or dad auditions.”

While the overall percentage of Asian characters on screen increased between 2007 and 2024, those gains were erased between 2023 and 2024, according to USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative Film Diversity Report, released in August 2025. The percentage of speaking characters of Asian descent decreased from 18.4 percent in 2023 to 13.5 percent in 2024. However, the report found that there were significantly more white characters on screen in 2024 (63.6%) than in 2023 (55.7%).

Liu also responded to producer Rachel Tan’s claims regarding her experience trying to act. It’s worth the wait. “They gave me a list of white men we could recruit. If we could give them one of the roles, we could get funded,” Tan told the Singaporean newspaper. The Strait Era.

“I’ve spoken to countless directors who have corroborated this,” he added on Threads. “The studios give out a list and right now all the names are white with maybe ONE bipoc name thrown in there so they cover their butts. and unfortunately that name is never Asian.”