Simu Liu is still reeling over his performance at the 2024 Oscars.
The "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" star said it was "pretty surreal" to dance alongside Ryan Gosling as he sang his hit song "I'm Just Ken" from the "Barbie" movie.
"Often when I'm on stage or live, I just kind of black out," Liu said on the March 13 episode of TODAY With Hoda & Jenna. "It was thrown together quite quickly. We started rehearsing for it on Thursday."
Liu, 34, shared he is four months into recovering from a surgery to repair his torn Achilles tendon, but decided to take part in Gosling's Oscars performance anyway.
"I'm powering through it because I'm like, I feel like this was gonna be a historic moment," he said. "I would never forgive myself if I wasn't a part of (it), but I was definitely like, 'Should I be doing this?' I was talking to my physio and he's like, 'Ehh?' And I was like, 'Whatever, I'm gonna do it."
Gosling's performance was a standout moment of Sunday's ceremony, where he reprised his role as Ken from the "Barbie" and was joined by many special guests like Slash, Wolfgang Van Halen and the song's writers and producers Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt.
Oh, and there was an army of Kens, too. Liu, Ncuti Gatwa, Kingsley Ben-Adir and Scott Evans were at the forefront of the group, also reprising their own roles as Ken dolls from the Greta Gerwig film.
"(Gosling) had such a specific vision for what he wanted," Liu said. Based on the performance, it included dozens of cowboy hats, pink lighting and some indoor pyrotechnics.
Liu told TODAY's Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager how the performance came together.
"The call came out to us individually," he said, and then Gatwa, Ben-Adir and Evans came together. "We all had such a beautiful time making this movie. And it was such a great way to wrap up the entire experience for us, with all this dancing."
The actor joked that he had a personal connection to the song "I'm Just Ken," as he played the Ken with the second biggest role in the movie.
"I mean, the entire song is, you know, 'Doesn't really matter I do, I'm always number two,'" he said, reciting the lyrics. "So I think that song actually really applied to me."
Jenna said the song has been stuck in her head "basically forever."
Liu agreed: "Especially now that you have the mental image of Slash."
