Simu Liuis a big advocate for animal rescue — and it’s a passion that was sparked at a young age.
In PEOPLE’s 2021 Sexiest Man Alive issue, theShang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Ringsstar, 32, recreates one of his favorite childhood photos featuring a duckling the actor “hatched” with his dad at 10 years old.
“We had just moved into our new house in Mississauga, Ontario, and one of the first few months that we were there, my dad comes into the house and is like, ‘There’s a little duck nest in front of our door!” recalls Liu, who posed with a gorgeous duck named Fred in L.A. last month. “He’s like, ‘I’m waiting for this duck mother to come back and she’s not showing up.'”
Liu and his dad decided to “try to hatch” the ducklings themselves and headed to the library for some assistance.
“I got every book that there was on duck reading. We took an old aquarium and put a heat lamp on top to make it a comfortable, warm environment for the eggs,” he recalls. “We had no expectation that the eggs would hatch.”
Peggy Sirota
About a month later, Liu had just arrived home from school when his dad hurried him upstairs. “I got to see the ducks coming out of their shell for the first time,” he says. “Since we were the first people — or creatures — that they had met, they thought that we were their mothers.”
For more on Simu Liu — and all the hottest guys in Hollywood — click here and pick up this week’s issue, on stands Friday, Nov. 12.
Twenty-some years later, Liu is still adding furry friends to the family. His latest rescue is a pup named Chopa, who he first met in the Dominican Republic.
Courtesy Simu Liu
Liu asked Chopa’s handler if he could foster her for a few days — but ended up keeping her permanently. “Sometimes you just have that special bond right away,” he says. “From that moment on, I just never gave her back!”
The star — who isbreaking barriers both on screen and offas Marvel’s first East Asian superhero — says animals were a constant for him during trying times.
“I’ve had dogs in my life pretty much from the moment I’ve been on my own. I was 22 years old, actually, incidentally hadjust been laid off from my joband I had a dog,” he says. “My parents just didn’t understand any of it.”
“It’s been such an incredible ride with ups and downs, but this idea that there is something in the world now that wasn’t there before that is meaningful to kids and [touches] people’s lives, I think that’s really incredible,” hesays ofShang-Chi. “It’s been immensely rewarding [to have] this platform now, and I don’t intend to waste it.”
source: people.com
