-Simu, welcome to the show.
-Thank you so much for having me, Jimmy.
Oh, my God, best --
Can I just say best swag
of any talk show or any I´ve ever been?
[ Laughter ] I mean, look at the detail.
-Look at that. -First of all, you know,
shrinkwrapped, shrinkwrapped, ribboned mugs.
-Shrink wrapped, ribboned mugs filled with water, by the way.
[ Laughter ] That´s very hard to do.
-It´s very hard to do.
-Yeah, I mean, you could use that for anything.
-You are my parents´ favorite talk show host
and so, they will be enjoying this.
[ Audience awws ] So I´m bringing this home.
-Hey, Mom and Dad, I love you. Hi.
[ Cheering and applause ] And, yeah.
You´ve got to be very proud of your son.
-Thank you. Don´t let me forget that.
I won´t. [ Laughter ]
How are you feeling?
This is the biggest movie in the world right now.
Shattered records, made over $160 million worldwide.
-Oh, man. -Yeah. I mean,
[ Laughter ] I know all these numbers.
[ Laughter ] I´m a numbers guy.
How does it feel?
Did you picture this moment happening?
-You know, I probably pictured it
with a little less COVID, to be honest.
[ Laughter ] Yeah, of course. Yeah.
-You know? Like a little less social distancing,
a little less lockdown, quarantine, and all that.
No, I feel like -- [ Laughs ]
I feel like it´s an exercise
in lowering your expectations, right?
Because I mean, it´s, you know, we did well, it´s a lot of money
and it´s the number 1 movie in the world.
But, you know, Marvel movies make like billions of dollars
and the fact that like we have ours
and it made, you know, 160 -- which is great, amazing, right?
But like they usually make $1 billion, so, then --
[ Laughter ] -Yeah, but, I mean,
you´re handling it very well -Thank you.
-and you have a good sense of humor,
but also, high pressure.
You threw out the first pitch, which I´m afraid to do.
-Oh, yes. -Really, I don´t know if I ever will do it
because it´s just so much --
I´m so nervous and I´m not a pitcher.
[ Laughter ] And so, you know.
But you went out, San Francisco Giants,
and you threw out the first pitch.
Not only great pitch,
but then you did the coolest thing after --
you did a full-on backflip.
-Little backflip situation, yeah.
[ Cheering and applause ] -Why add the pressure?
Why? Once you got the pitch down, then you go,
[ Clap ] "I´m outta here. We´re good.
Peace out." -Well, that´s the thing,
is that I didn´t expect the pitch to go as well as it did.
[ Laughter ] And, when I actually threw it, it went like
straight down the line. It was a strike.
I mean, it was a strike going at like two miles per hour.
[ Laughter ] -Doesn´t matter. It counts.
-And I was so happy in that moment, I was like,
"Yeah! We want to do it!" You know?
I wouldn´t necessarily have done the backflip,
if I had just thrown the ball
and it just bounced off the ground
or something like that.
-It was amazing.
Questlove, our very own Questlove has --
[ Laughter ] -Yes.
-Has thrown out the first pitch at a Phillies game.
-I´ve seen this legendary video. -Yeah, he´s at a Phillies game.
He threw out the first pitch. We actually have
[ Laughter ] a clip of Questlove
throwing the first pitch. -Let´s take a look.
-Yeah, it´s pretty good. Take a look at this.
-And the pitch.
-♫ Here I come, here I come ♫
[ Laughter ] -Oh, yeah, terrible, yeah.
[ Cheering, laughter, and applause ]
He just walked out.
He just left. He just walked out.
He just left the building. -Where´d he go?
-He left. It´s a very difficult thing to do.
High pressure and, yeah, not everyone can do it.
-Thank you. I appreciate that.
-I want to talk about "Shang-Chi."
-Yes.
-What does it feel like
to be kind of looked up to, now, of kids --
as well as adults, but kids seeing you
as an action hero, a superhero?
What was it like to play that role?
-I mean, you know, first of all, it was a dream come true
because, you know, growing up, I´d been such a big fan
of superhero movies, cartoons, TV shows.
Like I watched all of them.
I watched like the stuff that,
you know, even like, you know, the Jessica Alba,
you know, "Fantastic Four" from all the way back when
and all the obscure Marvel movies.
"The Punisher," I was probably not allowed
to watch it at the time, but I watched it, anyway.
[ Laughter ] You know, I just --
I think I loved what superheroes represented,
which is this kind of hope and this unlimited possibility.
And I just feel like everybody, regardless of, you know,
the color of their skin or where they come from,
deserves to see themselves represented in that way.
So what I´m really excited about this movie is that
we get to provide that for kids everywhere, you know,
[ Cheering and applause ] and to be something
that I never had growing up. -Yeah.
Did you ever see anyone that looked like you
as a superhero growing up, or who did you...?
-I mean, you know, I loved Spider-Man
and Spider-Man had a whole, you know,
a full mask over his face
and so you could kind of imagine who was underneath.
You know, we had the occasional Power Ranger.
[ Laughter ] Do you watch "Power Rangers"?
-Yeah, I did watch "Power Rangers."
But, I mean, it´s a big deal. It´s a big deal.
-Yeah.
-Please take the moment in
and know what you mean to a lot of people.
It´s really changed the game...
-Thank you. -...in a great way.
So, congratulations on that. -See that, Mom?
[ Cheering and applause ] -Yeah, no, exactly.
-I´m doing okay.
Jimmy says I´m doing okay, I´m doing okay.
-Beyond okay.
I want to show everyone a clip. Here´s Simu Liu
in "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings."
Take a look at this.
[ Suspenseful music plays ]
-You have the wrong guy!
Does he look like he can fight?!
Come on, bro!
Uh!
-Ahh!
♫♫
You okay?
-[ Grunting ]
♫♫
-Yo, what up, y´all?
It´s your boy Cliff,
[ Laughter ] coming at you live on the bus.
I actually did take a little bit of martial arts as a youth,
so I´m going to try and grade this fight as we´re going.
♫♫
[ Cheering and applause ] -More with Simu Liu after the break.