Liu: "The most important thing is to show up. You've just got to get your butt out there."

Liu: "Any other job you get into, you understand the career progression. There’s a logic to it. There’s no rule in acting. It’s equal parts hustle and grind, and total fluke and opportunity."

Liu: "Representation matters. And it's about more than just actors on a screen. It's about snacks, it's about food, it's about culture, in every possible way."

Liu: "All around me, I saw people who were taught by their parents, as I was, to just toe the line, not ruffle the feathers, not rock the boat too much and just put your head down, do your work and that's it. And I think that as a community, we're reaching the limitations of that kind of thinking."

Liu: "Every community should have a superhero. And the truth is, for many of us in the Asian community, we didn't grow up with that."

Liu: "A superhero represents infinite possibility. It represents the peak of aspiration and courage. And if you see yourself reflected as a superhero, you will give yourself permission to dream anything."

Liu: "I remember doing 5th grade math when I was like seven years old. My parents just constantly pushed me, in a good way, to always demand excellence in everything that I did."

Liu: "I am that person that struggled with my identity my whole life."

Liu: "When you’re starting out, so much of our industry consists of barriers and gates and not being able to see the bigger picture, and it can be extremely debilitating to not know what the path is."

Liu: "It's important that we meet any sort of hate and negativity with joy and celebration."

[On the challenges he has faced portraying an Asian superhero]

Liu: "It can be difficult because you’re being anointed to this platform where, if it’s only you, then you must speak for an entire people, and I think it’s maybe a bit easier when the lived experiences of your people are generally the same, but Asian Americans are so fragmented."

Liu: "I'm somebody who feels caught between two worlds a lot of the time."

Liu: "There was a cute girl on the crew that I was trying to impress during a very elaborate stunt. I winked at her and, when I started running, proceeded to lose my balance, fall, banged my knee, and ended up sprawled out 12 feet in the air."

Liu: "I've always had a bit of delusional confidence."

Liu: "I auditioned for 'Crazy Rich Asians' four times and it was very, very hard for me to not get it, because it was like, these 'Crazy Rich Asians' people were the cool kids and I was the one being left out."

Liu: "Who you seen on screen shapes who you are."

Liu: "I would do background and extra stuff, I would do student films, I just found every opportunity I could to be on set, and after awhile I accumulated enough work to get an agent."

Liu: "While I do believe whole-heartedly that it has been a major motivator in my life, I think if I were to set goals for myself in the next ten years, one of them would be to work for the culture and for what I believe is good and compelling art, rather than being driven by my need for the approval of others."

Liu: "I am that person that's always felt like he wasn't enough."

Liu: "What I wanted to get across to those people is that the system is not set up for actors to be successful. If you’re the average person and you’re like, 'I’m going to only do what the system wants me to do, which is to get an agent, wait by the phone, and audition until I book a role,' the odds of you succeeding are infinitesimally low, effectively zero."

Liu: "I was a dress-up Spider-Man for kids' birthday parties for a while."

Liu: "As the profile of the show grew, and as my profile grew, and after I booked the Marvel role, I was like, 'Oh, people feel like they can say anything to me.' I get a lot of opinions and backlash in ways that other actors don’t."

Liu: "I spent the better part of my young life searching for people's approval and validation, and not getting any of it."

Liu: "A Chinese person growing up in China has never had to turn on a TV and watch himself being portrayed in a really stereotypical way, whereas people like me who grew up in the West, we had to deal with that every day, and we have the complexes that have arisen from that."

Liu: "If you look at any of the people who have broken out in Hollywood, it’s usually because they’ve done something disruptive. The purpose of those seminars was to encourage people to think outside the box."

Liu: "The truth is, it’s tough to appease everybody, and I think that’s the burden I have and that certain people in my position will have, rather than somebody who is white and doesn’t feel the pressure to constantly represent, or speak out on issues."

Liu: "My parents were electrical engineers, immigrants from China, and we were always just in a state of struggle, building our life."

Liu: "I’d like to be someone who helped to legitimize Asian-American culture. We’re in the infancy of discovering what Asian-American identity is, and for the non-Asian people reading this, I think even they will have trouble distinguishing between Asian people who grew up in Asia and Asian people who grew up in North America. They are completely different lived experiences and completely different struggles."

Liu: "Was I prepared to find myself at the center of a greater political debate about my appearance? No. But I will say that growing up, I was obsessed with being good-looking, whether it was because I was an Asian man and I felt emasculated my whole life, or whether it was because I just wanted validation from women."