I Get To Love You [ShumDario]

69|| Global Family

All My Life star Harry Shum Jr calls Shadowhunters fanbase a loving, global family
Plus he talks playing the real-life Sol Chau, representation in Hollywood, and his dream role.
BY GABRIELLA GEISINGER
23/10/2020

Harry Shum Jr joins the phone-call with an upbeat lilt in his voice. He's in Vancouver, where it's 9am. "I'm ready to start the day!" he says excitedly, in a way that betrays his underlying positivity about, well, everything.

It's hard to say what Shum Jr is best known for: his six seasons on Glee, his time as a bisexual warlock on Shadowhunters, or his tantalising mid-credits scene in Crazy Rich Asians (of which we all want more). Whatever it was, it will, for now, be as the leading man in romance movies, as is evidenced by his two upcoming projects: All My Life (out in cinemas now), and Love Hard for Netflix.

"I'm very fortunate to be able to tell these little slice-of-life stories, especially someone like me who doesn't really, in Hollywood, usually have the opportunity to be in that position to tell those stories. So I'm really grateful for that," he said.

'Slice of life' is certainly a bittersweet way to describe his role as Sol in the upcoming All My Life, based on the true love story of Sol Chau and Jenn Carter in which the former is diagnosed with liver cancer, so the couple decide to bring up their wedding date. In real life, Sol died only four months after they were married.

The weight of this story is not lost on Shum Jr: "It's always difficult when you portray someone who is a real person, and is not a made-up character, and hasn't just come from the mind of a writer. So I didn't take that lightly.

"I had a picture of Sol by my nightstand that I spoke to. I wanted some sort of voice to at least help guide me, instead of just doing my research and talking to Jenn and getting whatever was off the page."

________
"I felt his energy there,
almost guiding me."
________

He laughs through his next admission, perhaps nervously, before settling into sincerity. "I had this really insane experience while shooting the film – anything actor-y that I wanted to do, or things that I wanted to do with the character, it was more like: no, Sol... I felt his energy there, almost guiding me.

"And as an actor, that was a really, you know, strange experience. Usually, you have your experiences of however and whatever method that you use. But this was something that – you know, I was just like a vessel, honestly. It was a really beautiful experience."

To different extents, all actors are vessels and though whether they channel spirits of their characters or not, it's a responsibility that they bear. Shum Jr for his part, takes that responsibility that he's both earned and loves: "I've been doing this for a while now," he laughs.