Simu Liu loves making animated films – and for good reason.
“I definitely showed up on set in pajamas and flip-flops,” he tells me while promoting his new animated film. Netflix family film”In your dreams. “It's really amazing. All that matters is that you give a vocal performance.”
Directed and co-written by Alexander Wu and Eric Benson, In Your Dreams is about two young siblings (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport and Elias Janssen) who meet the mythical Sandman (Omid Djalili) in their dreams and ask him to leave their parents (Liu and Cristin Milioti) together after they suspected they were on the verge of breaking up.
Liu's character is a musician, so it's no surprise that he and Milioti were asked to sing an original song for the film. “I don't think I agreed knowing that we were going to write an original song, but we did it and I got to do it with Christine and it's so amazing,” Liu says. “She's a fantastic singer, Broadway level.”
When I remind Liu that Milioti won 2013 Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album for his work in Once: A New Musical. he jokes, “I was nominated for an MTV Movie Award for Best Fight, which I lost to Sydney Sweeney.”
At one point in the film, Sandman talks about how dreams can depict how “perfect the world can be, how perfect it should be,” so I ask Liu what his idea of a perfect world is. “Oh my God, the Internet doesn’t exist,” he says. – Maybe there are no telephones… Everyone talks to each other. And more importantly, everyone listens to each other, and people lead with acceptance and curiosity, rather than saying, “I’ll try to suck this person up on social media to get likes.” They say, “Hey, we're all stuck here together, so let's just find a way to get along and not kill each other while we're at it.”
However, Liu has become known for speaking out on social media against right-wing politics. The possibility of a negative reaction does not bother him. “I should probably be more afraid of it,” he says.
But the need to express your opinion overcomes any fears. “I just feel like there's something about the Internet that drives people crazy,” Liu says. “There’s something about publicity and the fact that people like to be the guy who puts someone else down. [or] put an entire group of people to sleep. I’m not for this energy.”
He praises people like Melissa Barrerahis co-stars in the upcoming TV series The Copenhagen Test, for their “amazing courage and frankness.” The actress was fired from the Scream franchise in 2023 after producers deemed her pro-Palestinian social posts to be anti-Semitic.
“She’s like the bravest woman I’ve ever met, the most outspoken, the most fearless and the most confident in her own right,” Liu says. “Whether you agree with her or with everything she says, you can’t help but respect it.”
Liu reprized his role earlier this year Shang-Chi in the upcoming Marvel movie “Avengers: Judgment Day“
“It was really amazing, exciting,” he says. “So many of the actors I grew up watching and playing with them in the sandbox… it's a dream come true. I grew up watching superhero movies and wanting to believe that outcasts and nerds and weirdos could find superpowers and save the day. That's what 12-year-old me clung to. I still believe, for better or worse, because of what those movies mean today.”
Liu responds to the wave of criticism that has hit superhero films. “It’s fashionable to hate it now,” he says. “I think there are valid criticisms of how movies are made, how production budgets are allocated, I think there are a lot of good things to say, but I don't know how to crap on superhero movies as a genre. I don't know because I'm speaking as someone who just really loved watching them as a kid.”
In Your Dreams is available on Netflix.
