This cover shoot hit different for Simu Liu.
The Chinese-Canadian actor previously starred on Entertainment Weekly ahead of Shang-Chi hitting theaters in the summer of 2021, and Liu recalls that shoot fondly.
“You can tell I was having a lot of fun,” he says now, but “there was something really interesting right away about showing up to this shoot.”
Out on an empty train in Fillmore, Calif. (about 40 miles outside of central Los Angeles), EW’s photo director Alison Wild and head of video Kristen Harding had a mission for Liu: The co-directors explained “this is an operation,” says the actor. “Then I was like, ‘Okay, so we’re in the world of this Orient Express-esque train…. We got to talk a lot about character.'”
Character is also what we discussed in the full cover story, as Liu prepares to launch his new “spy-fi” drama The Copenhagen Test on Peacock (all eight season 1 episodes will be streaming on Dec. 27). But first, enjoy the photos below.
Spy in training
“We were in these different places in the train because, we were like: He’s staking someone out and he’s following them through,” Liu says of the shoot concept.
Finding a crack
Liu stars in The Copenhagen Test as Alexander Hale, a son of Chinese immigrants who finds his eyes and ears hacked by an enemy entity — complicating his job at a secret U.S. government intelligence agency.
Stunt man
Liu is a big proponent of doing his own stunts, which is something his Copenhagen Test costar Melissa Barrera found impressive and intimidating. “I’d drill the routine for weeks and Simu would show up and be like, ‘Oh, let me try to remember it really quick’ and then do it perfectly,” she recalls.
Action star
Liu was thrilled to work with brothers Chris and James Mark as the Copenhagen Test stunt coordinators. “I actually grew up idolizing them as a 14-year-old kid. They were these OG YouTube stars doing parkour all over the city,” Liu explains. “It was watching those videos that made me want to go out and learn gymnastics and back flips and things like that.”
Bringing the charm
“He brought this lightness, this charm that hadn’t been there before,” Copenhagen Test creator Thomas Brandon says of Liu joining the series. “Originally, Alexander was dour, brooding. But Simu’s natural effervescence gave us someone you want to root for, even as he’s walking down a thousand hallways broodingly.”
Taking the lead
“It’s not lost on me how rare it is for someone like me to be given even a hypothetical opportunity to be the lead of something,” Liu says. “So whenever there’s a chance, I want people to know I’ve been intentional with the material.”
Playing it cool
It was a fine Southern California day when Liu went shirtless for our EW cover shoot, but Copenhagen Test filmed on location in Toronto, through months of grueling winter. “It was historically cold,” Liu explains. “But it was special. We shot across the street from where [my former sitcom] Kim’s Convenience filmed. Crew members were wearing their old Kim’s shirts. It felt like a full-circle moment.”
Leaning into the paranoia
Alexander’s eyes and ears being being tapped means the intelligence analyst has to be thoughtful about everything he sees and hears, knowing it’s being fed directly to the hacker. “It creates a lot of really juicy layers that’ll hopefully make the audience lean in. Where they’re like, ‘Okay, I see that he’s looking at this… but is he looking at this because he’s looking at it, or is he looking at it because he wants [the enemy] to see that he’s looking at it?'” Liu says of Alexander serving as a triple agent of sorts.
Feeling shady
“He becomes his own director,” Liu says of Alexander adjusting to his new life. “He’s an elite actor, but he’s also a director because he’s literally controlling the camera and being a storyteller.”
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Check out EW’s full Copenhagen Test cover story with Simu Liu, Melissa Barrera, Brian d’Arcy James, and more.