Canadian star Simu Liu takes TV Week inside this one-of-a-kind sci-fi spy thriller

Just five years ago, Simu Liu was best known for playing playing Jung Kim, estranged son of Appa and Umma on beloved CBC sitcom Kim’s Convenience. What a difference a few years have made. Since then, he’s become a bona fide movie star, headlining Marvel superhero adventure Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings — not to mention several other films, including blockbuster Barbie. Meanwhile, he’s also unveiled a musical side with the release of his debut EP, Anxious-Avoidant.

Now, Liu is back on television in a new series that’s worlds apart from Kim’s Convenience — twist-filled espionage thriller The Copenhagen Test. He plays Alexander Hale, a first-generation Chinese-American intelligence analyst who realizes that his brain has been hacked, giving the mysterious perpetrators access to everything he sees and hears. “Caught between his shadowy agency and the unknown hackers, he must maintain a performance 24/7 to flush out who’s responsible and prove where his allegiance lies,” details the series’ logline.

For Liu, portraying a Chinese-American character within the spy-thriller milieu represents a new paradigm in what’s been a very familiar genre. “Up until this point in history, [spies are] the Jason Bournes and the James Bonds of the world,” the actor tells TV Week. “They all look a certain way. Those are the people that we trust with the highest order of intelligence and secrets. And here you have someone who looks like me. What does that do, when someone is trying to come up the ranks and be a spy when their own country’s government holds them suspect because of their own cultural background? All of the layers of a spy thriller where you’re dealing with different governments and conspiracy plots — all of that is woven with this very authentic look at what it means to be Asian in the West. I just thought, ‘What an incredibly unique premise that’s treated in such a smart way.’”

While there is a sci-fi conceit to The Copenhagen Test, given the recent advances in real-life technology, Liu doesn’t think that the notion of having one’s brain hacked is as far-fetched as some might believe. “It’s that idea of the constant surveillance, and we are constantly surveilled in a lot of ways — we willingly allow ourselves to be, because of our reliance on our devices and our technology,” he muses. “Doing the show has made me want to be more off-grid than ever before. Our phones are listening to us here. Even after this interview, you’re probably gonna get ads for our show!”

So, what does Alexander wind up learning about himself through the experience of being so intimately invaded? “That’s a really fantastic question,” Liu responds. “I think when we meet Alexander in the pilot, he’s someone who’s really desperate to prove himself and he’s desperate for that validation of, ‘You are one of us. You are American.’ That really resonates with me — that immigrant struggle of wanting to assimilate and wanting to feel at home in this country that they’ve clearly called their own, but the country does not necessarily [welcome them]. There’s a degree of craving the validation and ‘I wish someone would believe in me. I wish someone would gimme a chance.’

“Ultimately, the hack is an inciting incident that allows him to get that chance. But I think, over the course of the season, his wants and his objectives evolve to be maybe more holistic and more self-assured. Rather than operating from a place of ‘I wanna prove myself,’ he begins to operate from a place of ‘I need to do what’s right.’ Learning to find that trust in himself and his instincts and his abilities. It’s something that I resonate with so much and that I’ve been very much on the journey of.”

Headlining a big-budget U.S. series (airing on Showcase in his native Canada, and on the Peacock streaming service in the United States) has been a somewhat surreal reminder of the extraordinary trajectory that his career’s taken within just the past few years.

“I mean, I wake up every single day, I feel some degree of gratitude and guilt, because it really does feel like yesterday [when he was a struggling actor],” Liu reflects. “What was really cool is that we shot this show in Toronto, and I got to come home for five-and-a-half months. It was during winter, so I was not thrilled about the weather. But it was just such a full-circle moment. We had so many crew members that were our crew members from Kim’s. I saw so many familiar faces and it was an incredible, incredible experience for me. It was an opportunity for me to give back to the [Canadian film and TV] industry that really raised me.”

“And I remember while I was shooting Kim’s, I was on this American show that was also shooting in Toronto — and I was the only Canadian hire on the main regular cast,” he adds. “I remember how much of an imposter and how outside I felt. And so, it was important to me that I made all of our Canadian cast feel welcome . . . because there might be an actor on our show that springboards onto the next thing. My story in Canada is proof that you can do it, you know?”

The Copenhagen Test airs Tuesdays on Showcase