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Chinese Canadian actor Simu Liu, who last year starred as Marvel’s first Asian superhero, Shang-Chi, inadvertently sparked uproar online by revealing that he lost out on roles in another bankable movie: “Crazy Rich Asians”.
Though Liu had only expressed his disappointment at not getting a part, social media users were soon using his comments to resurface questions over the casting of British Malaysian actor Henry Golding as the lead character — and to debate whether Liu had been considered “too Asian” looking for the movie.
“In 2017 or early 2016, there were rumblings in the community that there was going to be a ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ movie, and I, being Asian, was very, very excited,” Liu said during an interview last week on the Apple podcast series “How To Fail With Elizabeth Day.”
But the actor — who was born in Harbin, in northeast China, and migrated to Canada as a child — ultimately lost out on parts in the Jon M. Chu-directed romantic drama, which featured an all-Asian cast and served as a ground-breaking moment for Asian representation in Hollywood.
“I remember distinctly asking my agent… what I could have done,” he continued, adding: “And through some sort of broken telephone, whether it had gone through a studio exec or a casting director before it got to our side, we got, ‘Well Simu doesn’t have the X-factor, the ‘it’ factor.’ And that was just such a crushing blow for me.
“I felt like I already worked so hard and come so far as an actor… It just felt like someone was telling me that I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t likable. I didn’t have that thing that made people want to watch it,” he added. “At the time it was very difficult for me. I was trying to figure out whether I could be the lead character or whether I could only be a supporting character for my entire career.”
The actor revealed that he auditioned for two parts in the 2018 movie: Colin, the best friend of Golding’s character, and Michael, the husband of Gemma Chan’s character. And while Liu said Golding had, at that time, already been selected to play history professor Nick Young, the son of an extremely wealthy but fiercely traditional Singaporean family, social media users quickly took to Twitter to speculate about why he was overlooked.

The cast of “Crazy Rich Asians” attend the movie’s premiere on August 7, 2018 in Hollywood, California. Credit: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
The ensuing debate online explored the notions of what it means to be and look Asian, with social media users chiming in with perspectives from across the world.
“I’m not surprised the studio went with the dude who’s only half-Asian to star as the main love interest for marketing purposes,” said one Twitter user. Others speculated that Liu was rejected for not meeting “Western beauty standards.”
Simu Liu’s, Henry Golding’s, Jon M. Chu’s representatives and Warner Bros. have not responded to CNN requests for comment. (Warner Bros., like CNN, is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.)
Asian representation in Hollywood has been extremely limited for decades. But while Chinese, Korean and Japanese actors have experienced some degree of increased visibility in TV series and movies in recent years, actors of southeast Asian descent — like Malaysian-born Golding — are rarely seen on the big screen.
Southeast Asia, one of the world’s most diverse regions, is home to hundreds of ethnic groups spread across 11 countries and speaking thousands of languages and dialects.
“Irrespective of where I am, be it in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Los Angeles or Toronto, I always find myself reliving those moments in my head and they have definitely etched their way into the kind of person I am now,” he told the magazine.

Henry Golding attends the 2022 Vanity Fair Oscar Party on March 27, 2022 in Beverly Hills, California. Credit: Arturo Holmes/FilmMagic Inc/Getty Images
Golding’s cultural heritage, including the origins of his hand-tapped tribal tattoos, is a matter of national pride among many Malaysians. So when his “Asian-ness” was questioned amid the debate sparked by Liu’s comments, fans in Malaysia rallied to his defense, arguing that his looks were representative of many multi-ethnic people in Southeast Asia. “Henry Golding was born and raised in Betong, Sarawak,” read one tweet. “Who are you to erase that part of him?”
Others remarked that Golding resembled men in places like Brunei and Indonesia, or said that the argument should not pit one Asian actor against another.
He shared in the book’s passage that he was now friends with the movie’s director Chu and said that he “just wasn’t right” for any of the roles. Liu wrote that Chu remembers the feedback “very differently,” but the way the message was construed would eventually motivate him to “perfect my craft and become a better actor.”
“(The movie) was a resounding victory for Asian American representation, featuring an ensemble of actors who were perfectly cast, from the painfully handsome Henry Golding and the intensely vulnerable Constance Wu… and so many more,” he added.
Top image caption: Simu Liu attends the 94th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood and Highland on March 27, 2022 in Hollywood, California.
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(CNN) — A collection of treasures from Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctica voyage has been sold at auction in London this week.
The highest priced item (£176,400, or $220,000) was a map of Antarctica Shackleton drew by hand detailing what he learned from his 1914-1916 expedition.
Shackleton, who was born in Ireland but lived most of his life in the United Kingdom, had a longtime fascination with Antarctica and visited the world’s southernmost continent four times.
“We were thrilled to offer this unique hand drawn map of Antarctica, created by one of the greatest polar explorers,” Richard Fattorini, Senior Specialist, Books & Topographical Photographs at Sotheby’s, said in a statement.
He added: “Shackleton’s outstanding leadership and exploits continue to fascinate and inspire people of all ages today.”
Other lots in the auction, which ended on May 25, included a bronze medallion that was awarded to Shackleton by the Chilean Historical and Geographical Society and a photograph of Shackleton and his dog on board the Endurance.
Arguably the most interesting piece was one of the first books ever printed and bound on Antarctica, which was produced by explorers Ernest Joyce and Frank Wild (both of whom had gotten training as printers in the UK) and edited by Shackleton.
The book contains coordinates of the 1907-1908 Antarctic expedition, Latitude 77°.. 32′ South Longitude 166°.. 12′ East.
Simply the fact that it exists is miraculous due to the challenging conditions of doing anything on the White Continent. The book was printed on fragments from wooden crates and leather bindings from horse harnesses. Joyce and Wild had to keep a constantly-moving candle underneath the “pages” in order to prevent the ink from freezing during the production process.

In the book, there are eleven lithographs from George Marston, including the one on the cover.
Sothebys
The volume sold for £100,800 ($127,000).
There were 100 of these books produced by Joyce and Wild, with 65 accounted for today. This one has an inscription from Frank Wild’s brother Laurence to his grandson Nicholas.
The sale also featured some other Antarctic items that weren’t connected to Shackleton.
One was a Norwegian flag brought along on expeditions by trailblazing explorer Roald Amundsen, which sold for £88,200 ($111,000). Amundsen was the first person to reach the South Pole and to navigate the Northwest Passage.

This flag, one of a dozen that Roald Amundsen had with him on his voyages, was given to the explorer’s brother Gustav and passed through several owners after his death.
Sothebys
Ernest Shackleton is best known for his HMS Endurance mission. The ship and its crew departed England in 1914, then reached the McMurdo Sound in 1915 before getting trapped in ice. The crew eventually reached Elephant Island, and several members — including Shackleton — volunteered to leave on a small boat and search for rescuers.
The daring plan worked. After a trek across the unforgiving landscape, Shackleton reached a Norwegian whaling station on South Georgia Island and from there coordinated the rescue of the remaining sailors.
Though the mission itself wasn’t successful, the fact that the team returned safely cemented Shackleton’s place in history.
Russia is trying to “blackmail” the international community with an offer to unblock Ukrainian sea ports if sanctions against it are lessened, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday.
This is “clear blackmail,” Kuleba claimed. “You could not find a better example of blackmail in international relations.”
He warned that if Russia does not lift its blockage of Ukrainian exports of crops, the entire agricultural cycle will be interrupted and could spur a “multi-year food crisis.”
Some background: Before the war, Ukraine was the world’s fourth-largest exporter of corn and fifth-largest exporter of wheat, according to the US State Department. Almost 30% of global trade in wheat came from Russia and Ukraine alone.
Speaking at a panel discussion, Kuleba said Russia and Ukraine are nowhere near the possibility of negotiated peace and that Moscow has no intention of taking part in discussions aimed at ending the war.
“When you are conducting an operation like this, you basically say no to negotiations. If Russia had preferred talks to war, they would have behaved differently,” he said.
Making concessions to Russia has not worked since 2014 and won’t work now, Kuleba said.
“This strategy has been used by the leading global forces from 2014 to Feb. 24, 2022. Make concessions here, make concessions here, it will help prevent war. It has failed. Eight years of this strategy has resulted in missiles hitting Kyiv and bloodshed in Donbas,” the foreign minister said.
Kuleba called again for further sanctions against Russia, namely stopping the purchase of Russian oil, which he said is keeping Moscow in a comfortable position.
“Ukraine is suffering more than Russia is with the sanctions against it. … After three months of war, my message is simple: kill Russian exports. Stop buying from Russia and allowing them to make money that they invest in the war machine to kill and destroy,” he said.
While the Supreme Court has been working behind closed doors on its first major Second Amendment opinion in more than a decade, three mass shootings have broken the country, including Tuesday’s massacre of 19 schoolchildren in Texas.
Closed off from public view, the justices are penning opinions and dissents in a dispute that targets one concealed carry law in New York that is more than a century old. A narrow ruling could impact only a handful of states with similar laws, but a more expansive ruling could open a new chapter in constitutional challenges to gun safety laws across the country.
“As a formal matter, the Supreme Court’s ruling on New York’s gun law doesn’t call into question gun laws restricting types of weapons or sensitive places where individuals can carry guns,” said Jacob Charles, executive director of the Center for Firearms Law at Duke University School of Law.
“But a broader ruling that changes the way courts evaluate gun laws could call into question a wider array of gun regulations like assault weapons bans and other restrictions like high-capacity magazine bans,” Charles added.
The deliberations come as the country mourns another tragedy, victims of gun violence plea for more action, and the political branches seem forever divided on a path forward.
In 2008, the Supreme Court held for the first time, that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms at home for self-defense.
After the ruling, however, to the frustration of gun rights advocates, lower courts relied upon language in the opinion to uphold many gun regulations.
“Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings,” then-Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority in the Heller case.
Except for a follow-up decision two years later, the justices largely stayed away from the issue, infuriating gun rights advocates and even some of the justices themselves.
Justice Clarence Thomas declared at one point that the “Second Amendment is a disfavored right in this court.”
After Amy Coney Barrett took her seat, the court agreed to take up a new case, highlighting the impact of former President Donald Trump’s three nominees on the court.
Keep reading here.