Shang-Chi Actors Auditioned With Scripts From Good Will Hunting

Actors auditioning for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings were given monologues from Good Will Hunting to read, for a specific reason. The upcoming MCU film stars Simu Liu as the eponymous hero, alongside Awkwafina, Tony Leung, Michelle Yeoh, Meng’er Zhang, Fala Chen, Ronny Chieng, and Florian Munteanu. Shang-Chi is scheduled to release in theaters on September 3, 2021.

Shang-Chi’s story isn’t necessarily the standard Marvel superhero fare. Born the son of the villainous Mandarin (Leung), a brutal crime lord and head of the feared Ten Rings organization, Shang-Chi flees his home for America and tries to build a new life for himself. He doesn’t possess any typical superhuman abilities, relying instead on his sharp martial arts skills to get by in battle. The film has been described by some of the cast and crew as a family drama, with the twisted relationship between Shang-Chi and The Mandarin at its center.

To bring out what he saw as the essence of the Shang-Chi character in auditions, director Destin Daniel Cretton had actors read monologues from Matt Damon’s acclaimed 1997 drama Good Will Hunting. Speaking recently with EW, Cretton explained that he chose Good Will Hunting because of Shang-Chi’s similarities to Damon’s Will, a character who the director said, “represents this mixture of masculinity and vulnerability” and “also has a secret and a superpower that he doesn’t quite understand and has not stepped into.” Liu agreed with the comparison, explaining how he believes his version of Shang-Chi has many of the same experiences as Will Hunting. Read his full quote below.

“That movie is all about a guy going to extreme lengths to hide who he is. He’s a genius hiding in plain clothes. Shang-Chi is also somebody who is kind of putting on a mask day to day. It’s about Shang-Chi learning that even though there is a prescribed destiny that his dad has bestowed on him, he can also carve out his own path. It’s pretty Asian American.”

While some superhero films succeed at the box office purely on the merits of their action and special effects, the best entries in the MCU have exceeded such limited expectations. The characters have always been the emotional core of the franchise, and Marvel Studios has been at its best when blending blockbuster action with more personal, understated storylines. From the sound of it, Shang-Chi will continue strongly in that tradition.

Right now, it’s not entirely clear how Shang-Chi’s character will fit into the future of the MCU. The movie will harken back to the franchise’s early days with storylines involving the Ten Rings and the return of Abomination, but that doesn’t shed much light on the role Shang-Chi could play in future films. In part, that’s because the MCU’s next overarching story arc has yet to be revealed. But from what Liu and Cretton have said, the personal drama of Shang-Chi should be more than enough to deliver a satisfying addition to the MCU on September 3.