The end of summer marks a time to celebrate your favorite movie franchises, TV shows, comic books and anime at Fan Expo Canada, which returned for another great year in Toronto. The annual convention has become a major fixture in the city, drawing fans from all over for four days of cosplaying, seeing their favorite celebrities and meeting up with friends.
The first day started with an appearance from Paul Sun-Hyung Lee (The Mandalorian, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Murdoch Mysteries and Kim’s Convenience), promoting his LEGO set at the LEGO Booth. He signed autographs and took photos, making sure he took the time to speak to every single fan that came through the line.
The biggest part of the weekend was celebrating 25 Years of the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Due to the popularity of the event, another night, titled An Evening with the Hobbits was added. The evening was filled with Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan trying Canadian treats such as butter tarts for the first time, playing charades and talking about their time on the series. Throughout the course of the weekend in various panels, new tidbits about the cast were learned. Billy Boyd spoke of the epic voicemails that Viggo Mortensen used to leave him, which would be full of details. This was David Wenham's (Faramir) first appearance at Fan Expo Canada, and he described his favorite scene from the movie as being when Faramir rode out on his horse to his death. The filming of this scene took place on a two kilometer road with six cameras on a truck to capture the scene. You can see the connection and the friendship among the cast members is still strong even after 25 years.
Star Wars star Mark Hamill's panel was one of the most popular ones -- there was not an empty seat in the theater. He spoke about his childhood, being the middle child of seven children; going to nine different schools due his father being in the military and he revealed that his parents did not approve of him being an actor since they did not know anyone in show business.
Fans of the TV show Reacher were delighted to meet and talk with star Alan Ritchson. The show is currently in its fourth season and is filmed in various locations throughout Ontario. He revealed that he didn’t think he would be good as the character, Reacher, and didn’t watch the original movies. He said he grew up having to be good at everything and didn’t really know what he was good at until he was into his 30s, but now he loves what he does as an actor.
Other actors that made appearances were Catherine Bell (JAG, The Good Witch), Mr. T, some of the cast of The Goonies, some from Starship Troopers and Brendan Wayne (The Mandalorian).
The weekend ended with a panel with wrestler, rapper and actor, John Cena. Cena is well known for his work with Make-a-Wish foundation, granting 650 wishes, the most in the organization’s history. Cena spent the day signing autographs and doing photo ops with the fans. At the panel, he went straight to answering fans' questions, saying that he wanted to talk to the fans, moving away from the traditional setup of panels where the celebrity would talk about their careers and themselves before going to the fans for their questions. Fans were delighted to get the chance to hear Cena talk directly to them throughout the panel.
2026 was essentially a big nostalgia-and-fandom year for FAN EXPO Canada as well as celebrating 30 years of bringing fans together. As the summer draws to a close, many fans walked away with new merchandise, new friends, renewed friendships and wonderful memories to last a lifetime. ~Article and photos by Joanne Chu-Fook