'Shang-Chi' Star Simu Liu's Past Modeling Photos Resurface on Social Media and Fans Can't Get Enough

By Daniel S. Levine

Before Simu Liu hit it big with the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the Kim's Convenience star did a stock photo modeling shoot, which recently resurfaced on social media. The pictures for Getty Images are generic images that publications could use to show people at work or in business meetings. Liu said he was paid a one-time fee of just $100, but the 2014 photos have shown up on magazines, billboards, and websites without the actor seeing a penny more.

Liu, 32, tweeted one of the photos himself on Sept. 6 in response to Shang-Chi's success at the box office over the Labor Day weekend. The picture shows Liu smiling and pointing to a laptop screen, with two other models laughing over his shoulder. "We always believed in you, [Liu]. And if being a superhero doesn't work out, our door is always open," Getty's iStock responded. However, Liu quickly replied: "Is the door open to share in the hundreds of thousands of $$ you made off those photos cause I was paid a hundred bucks?"

This was not the first time Liu noticed how often the photos are used, notes BuzzFeed. He recently noticed that a picture of himself standing among other models while wearing a white helmet was used on the side of a business. "I did ONE stock photoshoot for 100 bucks cash in 2014 and I have ended up on HUNDREDS of ads and storefronts and textbook covers," Liu wrote. "Moral of the story: Think twice before doing a stock photoshoot because they own the photos FOREVER."  

New Meme Material

"The only thing better than your film saving the movies is the fact that we have all this fresh stock photo meme material," actor Stephen Ford wrote.

A Shang-Chi in business attire action figure?

One Marvel fansite created a hilarious Photoshopped image of an action figure of Liu in his business attire seen in one of the pictures.

New Zoom backgrounds!

"We all need to start using these as zoom backgrounds or in slide decks at work & see who catches him," one fan wrote.

Not quite a pro fighter

In 2017, Liu spotted one of the photos being used as the cover of an accounting textbook, which he found ironic since he worked as an accountant before he started his acting career. In 2018, a fan spotted a photo on the cover of a magazine. Another fan found the same picture used on a YMCA Canada flyer. "That stock photoshoot always finds a way to come back and haunt me LOL," Liu wrote in 2018.

The Legend of the Three-Ring Binder

Liu's acting career began as an extra in Pacific Rim, and he scored his first credited role in The CW's Nikita. He played Jung Kim on all five seasons of Kim's Convenience, which was released on Netflix in the U.S. He stars as the title character Shang-Chi in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. He is a member of the English language dub cast for Star Wars: Visions.

'This is amazing'

"I just see [Lie] photobombing a photo shoot, holy crap this is amazing," one fan wrote.

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