Canadian actor Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, the face of Captain Carson Teva in the Star Wars series The Mandalorian and Ahsoka, headlines the LEGO Group's booth at FAN EXPO Canada this week. Lee appears at the LEGO booth, number 1045 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, on Thursday, August 27, from 2:00 to 5:00 PM for a special appearance and photo opportunity. The first 50 fans in line receive a special signed souvenir.
The appearance is part of a larger LEGO takeover of the show floor built around Pokémon, Star Wars, and Spider-Man, all recreated in LEGO bricks under one roof. For fans of any of those three worlds, and for anyone who has followed Lee's career from Toronto stage to a galaxy far, far away, Thursday is the day to be at the convention.
What to know before you line up
The timing matters here. The first hour of the appearance, from 2:00 to 4:00 PM, is reserved for VIP ticket holders only, so general-admission fans get their window from 4:00 to 5:00 PM. With only 50 signed souvenirs available and VIP holders going first, anyone hoping for one should plan on lining up well before the general window opens. There is a real chance the souvenir supply is gone before general ticket holders reach the front.
Here is why that VIP window exists and why it will be crowded. This year marks FAN EXPO Canada's 30th anniversary, and the show has stacked its guest list accordingly. Mark Hamill himself headlines the celebrity lineup in a rare appearance, with his own panel and VIP package. The show also runs a Special Preview on Thursday starting at 2:00 PM, but only for VIP, Ultimate, and 4-day pass holders who bought it in advance. That means the entire early-access crowd is already on the floor when Lee's signing window opens, and the most dedicated of them will make a beeline for the LEGO booth. If you hold a regular single-day Thursday pass, your realistic plan is to arrive at the convention center well before the main doors open at 4:00 PM and head straight for booth 1045.
If you are going specifically for Lee, treat Thursday as your day at the show. He appears once, on the opening day of the four-day convention, which runs through Sunday, August 30. Standard show hours run Friday 10 AM to 7 PM, Saturday 10 AM to 7 PM, and Sunday 10 AM to 5 PM.
Who is Paul Sun-Hyung Lee
Toronto audiences know Lee first as Appa, the family patriarch in Kim's Convenience, a role he played on stage starting in 2011 and then for five television seasons from 2016 to 2021. That performance earned him the Canadian Screen Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series four times, a record of dominance in the category that few Canadian performers have matched. The show became a fixture of CBC programming and found a global audience on Netflix, turning Appa's corner store into one of the most recognizable settings on Canadian television.
Star Wars fans know him as Captain Carson Teva, the New Republic X-wing pilot who first appeared in The Mandalorian season 2 in 2020 and went on to appear in The Book of Boba Fett, three episodes of Ahsoka season 1, and this year's feature film The Mandalorian and Grogu. Teva started as a small recurring part, an easygoing pilot with a keen eye for trouble on the Outer Rim, but the character connected hard with fans, and Lucasfilm kept bringing him back. It is that role, and the Grogu connection in particular, that makes Lee a natural fit for a Star Wars-themed LEGO booth where fans can build their own Grogu at the Make & Take bar.
Avatar fans got their own version of Lee in 2024, when he played Uncle Iroh in Netflix's live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Taking on Iroh, a character whose original voice performance ranks among the most beloved in animated television, was a high-wire act, and Lee played him with the warmth fans hoped for. You can read our thoughts on how the series landed in our Avatar: The Last Airbender review.
Few Canadian actors span three fandoms this cleanly: sitcom royalty, Star Wars, and one of Nickelodeon's most treasured animated worlds. That range is exactly why the signing line at booth 1045 will stretch long past the LEGO display cases.
What else is at the LEGO booth
Lee's appearance anchors a busy booth built around the idea of three worlds under one roof. A life-size brick-built Pikachu celebrates 30 years of Pokémon, and the booth previews the LEGO Pokémon sets that launched earlier this year, the line LEGO unveiled back in January with a first wave featuring Pikachu, Eevee, Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise. Star Wars fans can climb aboard a life-size AT-RT for a photo opportunity, and a life-size brick-built Spider-Man display comes with an immersive city-inspired photo backdrop.
The hands-on stuff runs all four days. The Make & Take Build Bar lets fans build a Pokémon Poké Ball or a LEGO Star Wars Grogu to take home, which pairs neatly with the Teva appearance if you want your signed souvenir photographed next to a tiny brick Grogu. The Heroes: Origin Story experience walks you through building your own hero identity in the LEGO Play app, hands you a personalized Hero Name souvenir, and sets up a comic-book-inspired photo moment where you become the star of your own story.
LEGO Insiders get one more hook: a Star Wars-themed scavenger hunt across the booth, with an exclusive Joe Hogan LEGO Star Wars poster for the first 1,000 eligible fans each day. Joe Hogan is a LEGO Star Wars designer with a real following among collectors, so expect that daily allotment to disappear by mid-morning once doors open. An on-site retail pop-up stocks featured sets from all three fandoms if the Make & Takes are not enough bricks for the day, including the 2,050-piece Pikachu and Poké Ball set and the up-scaled Darth Vader minifigure from the Star Wars wall.
Planning your LEGO booth visit
A little routing goes a long way at a show that fills both the North and South Buildings of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and drew more than 130,000 attendees at its last published count. The LEGO booth sits at number 1045 on the show floor, and LEGO publishes an interactive map of the space on its official page, worth studying before you go so you know where the Make & Take bar queues versus the retail pop-up.
A practical Thursday order of operations for a Lee fan: arrive before the afternoon window opens, do the scavenger hunt or grab a Make & Take slot while you wait if lines allow, meet Lee between 2:00 and 5:00 PM, then finish with the photo ops while the crowds thin toward the evening. If you miss him or the souvenirs run out, the booth itself stays open all four days, so Friday through Sunday still gets you the Pikachu, the AT-RT, and the builds without the biggest crush of the week.
Unknowns
- Whether the appearance includes a panel or Q&A component, or is strictly a meet-and-greet line
- Photo mechanics at the booth (selfie versus staffed photographer) have not been detailed by LEGO
- How quickly the 50 signed souvenirs will go once the VIP window opens at 2:00 PM
- Whether additional celebrity appearances will be added later in the weekend
- Daily restock schedules for the Make & Take bar have not been published
If you are going
FAN EXPO Canada runs August 27 to 30 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. For booth details, appearance times, and the interactive map of the LEGO booth, check the official LEGO Fan Expo page, and confirm ticket options and show hours on the FAN EXPO Canada site. Line up early for the souvenir, budget time for the Make & Take bar, and if you are a Teva fan with a Grogu build in hand, that photo might be the best souvenir of the weekend.
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