Why Taiwanese Lion King animator Davy Liu quit Disney to forge own path
I couldn’t make another story about a princess, says animator who worked on Mulan, Aladdin and The Lion King and now writes, develops scripts and encourages young people to use their creative talent
Former Disney animator Davy Liu, who was in Hong Kong this month for an exhibition and creativitiy workshops, talks about his upbringing in the United States and giving up a high-paying job to found his own studio.
Tell us about immigrating from Taiwan to the United States.
Moving to the US was a culture shock, as I went from an all-Chinese environment to an all-black ghetto American middle school, not knowing a word of English. But I soon adapted to the Black culture. And I was happy to get out of Taiwan. The main reason was my mum didn’t want me to have so much academic pressure in Taiwan, because I was an underachiever compared to my siblings and struggled to learn academically the Taiwanese way.
How did you start realising your talent in arts?
I had such a difficult time paying attention to things I found totally uninteresting. So my failure to get good grades became my greatest blessing
I’d always liked drawing as a kid because I grew up watching a lot of evening cartoons. It was natural that I wanted to draw from what I was exposed to and fond of. Being creative and artistic was not encouraged during my childhood because my parents thought there was no future in art. I went to America and met my art teacher, and she empowered me by telling me that ‘You can do it!’, so after that I won many national awards just to prove that she was right, that I can do it.