Awkwafina has been in her fair share of blockbuster movies, but Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings marks her first film in the superhero genre. Joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe can be quite exhilarating for actors - not only does it mean they're starring in one of the year's biggest movies but in doing so, the trajectory of their careers may change forever.

Of course, all of that didn't entirely drive Awkwafina's role in Shang-Chi. In starring in the film, she hoped to change Hollywood's representation of Asian actors. In many ways, Shang-Chi accomplishes that goal, and then some.

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Ahead of the movie's release, Awkwafina spoke to Screen Rant about Katy's future as well as her characters' climactic moment in the final battle against the Dweller in Darkness.

WARNING: This interview contains spoilers for Shang-Chi.

Katy on bus looking shocked in Shang-Chi

Screen Rant: At the very end of the film, we see Wong invite Shang-Chi and Katy to go along with him, so where do you see your character’s story go next from here?

Awkwafina: You know, I literally have no idea. I think there’s many different things that can happen. But most importantly, if we were to see these characters again, I just would want her to still be teamed up with Shang-Chi in some respect because I think their friendship reflects a lot on who they are.

Their friendship, especially at the beginning of the film with Katy’s family and their jobs, makes them seem quite relatable in a way that other characters haven’t been able to do in most superhero movies. Can you talk about the process in shaping that and did you inject anything personal to make it more believable?

Awkwafina: That’s really interesting; I haven’t heard that perspective yet. I guess, yeah, Katy definitely is going through all of this for the first time and we obviously don’t know anything about Shang-Chi until the bus [scene]. But Katy was written to be kind of similar to me and to the humor of someone who’s experiencing all this craziness at once. So that’s pretty relatable about them. Everyone knows what it’s like to kind of be working an odd job or just trying to get by and just wanting to party.

Also, at the end of the film during the bar scene, Katy mentioned she only spent one day learning archery, and then she shot a perfect arrow at the villain. It’s very interesting because there can be sort of Deus Ex Machina moments in these films when a character learns a new power and is suddenly in complete control of it. Was that a meta-joke for you and did you actually learn archery for this movie?

Awkwafina: I did. I did learn archery in preparation for any archery scenes I had. But I don’t know if that was necessarily planned or done on Katy’s part, so I think the more important, underlying message there is, why not take the shot?

You’ve been in quite a few blockbuster movies in recent years, but Shang-Chi is obviously quite different in that it’s a CGI-heavy Marvel superhero movie. So how was it different for you? Because like you said, the character was kind of made in a way to represent you, but you were in a different environment here.

Awkwafina: Every project is going to be different for its own context. I think this one, being the first Asian superhero in the MCU and kind of its scale, it felt different, but it also adds to this larger picture of how we’re changing what representation means in Hollywood. And in that way, I’m always very grateful to be part of projects like this.

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