Simu Liu felt crushed after not being cast in Crazy Rich Asians

Simu Liu was crushed not getting a part in 'Crazy Rich Asians'.

The 33-year-old Chinese actor auditioned four times for Jon M. Chu's 2018 rom-com - which starred the likes of Constance Wu and Henry Golding - and claims he was told he didn't have the 'It factor", which knocked his confidence.

Speaking on the 'How To Fail With Elizabeth Day' podcast, he said: "I just remember being devastated at the time.

"It was at a time that 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."

He added: "We got, 'Well Simu doesn't have the X factor' or the 'It factor'. And that was just such a crushing blow for me because I, again, I felt like I already worked so hard and I came so far and I trained as an actor and taken countless hours of class was like, 'what is the 'It factor'?' like it just felt like someone was telling me that I just wasn't good enough."

Simu Liu is set to play a version of Ken in the upcoming live-action 'Barbie' movie alongside the likes of Margot Robbie (Barbie) and Ryan Gosling (Ken), and the cast have had so much filming the flick that they can't believe they are getting paid to do it.

He spilled: "It's very pink. There's a lot of pink, which is honestly just kind of a lot of fun to come to work every day, right? And there's been multiple times on this production that we've kind of looked at each other, whether it's like cast or crew or even Greta [Gerwig, director] and been like, 'how are we getting paid to do this? This is insane' which I think is always a good sign every day feels like we're just going to play. And I can't wait for people to see it."