Former Disney animator and Kendu Kids founder Davy Liu faced a brutal choice after leaving the studio to create Bible-rooted stories for children: return to the career he loved or sell his house and keep going.
“I had two choices, either sell my house or go back to work for Disney,” Liu told “The Unbound Podcast” host and The Urban Alternative founder and president Dr. Tony Evans.
Liu returned to that crossroads in an Aug. 18 conversation about creativity, sacrifice and God’s calling. Movieguide® covered his departure from Disney in 2022; the new interview shows how close he came to turning back.
Long before Hollywood, Liu moved from Taiwan to the United States at 13 and struggled with a new language and culture. Art became his refuge, according to his official biography, and he later graduated from Ringling School of Arts and Design before working on BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, ALADDIN, MULAN and THE LION KING.
“Only God knew that He gave me that gift, and I was meant to be set apart,” Liu said.
Disney gave Liu what he called a dream job, and he learned how much patience, manpower and discipline memorable stories require. A current Great Homeschool Conventions biography also credits him with work for Warner Bros. and Lucasfilm.
Related: Famed Disney Animators Team Up for the Story of Jesus
Still, Liu began asking what his creativity was for. He told Evans that, as a young artist, he wanted to win an Academy Award partly so his mother could say she was proud of him, but Scripture changed the way he measured his worth.
“Don’t just leave Disney, but feed My sheep,” Liu recalled God impressing on his heart while he worked on a STAR WARS project in 1999.
Liu said he left in 2000, then endured a divorce, financial anxiety and the sale of his home after 9/11. He also described spending a painful year close to abandoning his new direction before Matthew 13:44, Jesus’ parable of a man who joyfully sells everything to obtain a hidden treasure, reframed the cost.
His official biography says he founded a creative studio in 2004. He later started Kendu Kids in 2019 to use books, curriculum and animation to teach children biblical truth and character.
The ministry’s Invisible Tails series retells Bible stories through the eyes of animals. Liu carried over Disney’s appetite for scale and polish; he wants Christian stories to compete for children’s attention with strong craft, not just a good message.
Progress has been slow. Liu said parents’ responses at conferences remind him that the stories connect with children, even after more than two decades of work.
“Every breath that I have, I want to keep going,” he said.
Liu also credited a men’s group at his church with helping pull him from one of his lowest seasons. Evans said that support showed what Christian community should offer. A Sunday message matters, but believers also need people who walk beside them when faithfulness gets expensive.
Twenty-five years into the work, Liu still does not have the quick ending he might have imagined when he left Disney. He has kept drawing, and he now measures success by children reached rather than an award on a shelf.
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