Simu Liu’s life is an open book now that he’s written a memoir, the recently published We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Story
Simu grew up in China with his paternal grandparents until he was 4 years old when his parents suddenly brought him to Canada.
“With my grandparents, I felt completely safe. To me that’s what home is,” he said, adding that with his parents,...
“it was very clear to me early on that [they] wouldn’t be able to provide that environment.”
Liu parents’ expectations proved difficult to meet. When his grades began to slip to a B, Simu says there were verbal fights and beatings
“I remember thinking, ‘I’ve got the worst parents in the world.’ I felt so alone. Nobody could understand what I was enduring at home.”
Liu writes, that it was his landing his career-making role in CBC sitcom “Kim’s Convenience” around 2017, that led to a turning point
“It was eight pages, and I remember being so nervous as I was handing it to her,” he says. “I said, ‘I want you to know it comes from a place of love.'”
After she’d read what he’d written, she called him, resulting in “the first time we really talked about those issues,” he explains.
“We both acknowledged that we were flawed human beings trying to do our best.”
For more on how Liu found healing with his parents and his incredible journey to stardom, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.