Simu Liu may be a major Hollywood star now, but his career started in a completely different field—one that ended rather abruptly. The Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings actor recently shared a hilarious story about how he got fired from his accounting job after just eight months.
Why Simu Liu got fired from his accounting job
During an interview on The Today Show on February 25, host Craig Melvin asked if Liu’s friends still ask him for tax advice. Laughing, Liu admitted that while he did study accounting and briefly worked in the field, he’s probably the last person anyone should trust with their taxes. Joking about his short-lived career, he said, “If you wanna go to jail for tax fraud, you can absolutely have me do your taxes. However, they will not be done correctly.”
When asked why he was let go so quickly, Liu revealed that he had secretly taken a day off work to be an extra in a movie. He had responded to a Craigslist ad for a role in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim and decided to go for it, assuming no one at work would notice his absence. To avoid being disturbed, he turned off his phone for the entire day. When he finally turned it back on, he was shocked to see 42 missed calls from his workplace. At that moment, he realized that his accounting career was likely over.
Before making it in Hollywood, Liu worked at Deloitte, one of the world’s biggest consulting firms. His parents, Zheng and Zhenning Liu, were proud of his stable career and had high hopes for his future in finance. Getting fired and deciding to pursue acting was a huge turning point, and he struggled with how to break the news to his family. In a 2022 interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Liu admitted that he avoided telling them at first, but when a national commercial he had appeared in was about to air, he had no choice but to come clean. Looking back, he admitted that the conversation did not go well.
Despite the rocky start, Liu’s risk paid off, and he is now one of Hollywood’s most recognizable faces. From starring in Shang-Chi to appearing in Barbie and his upcoming film Last Breath alongside Woody Harrelson, he has proven that sometimes, getting fired can be the best thing that ever happens to you.