John Boyega, Once a Stock Photo Model, Proves That Anything Is Possible

In another installment of “I knew him when…”, a University of Nebraska student recently spotted a familiar face in one of the campus’ advertisements.

The following image was shared on Imgur on Friday.

Chris Schmidt/Getty Images/Vetta Years before he was cast as a lead in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”, John Boyega (left) was featured in a stock photo series called Further Education.

A bit of digging reveals that the photo is actually one of several stock images featuring Boyega on Getty. However, titled “Further education: school friends”, the picture’s accompanying caption reads: “A group of 5 late-teenage school friends in a line with bright smiles and eye contact for the camera”.

Mashable has since sourced another image from Boyega’s Getty photo-shoot, shown below. The chilled expression. The nonchalant way he’s leaning against that bench. The image quickly was put up on Imgur, and the validity was confirmed by the photographer himself, Chris Schmidt.

Though actor John Boyega is now the star of the biggest movie in the galaxy, a long time ago he was a student looking to make a couple extra bucks by appearing in stock photographs.

For his part, Boyega charmingly joked about the pictures on Twitter.

Schmidt’s post ends with “The force is strong with [Boyega]”, and we tend to agree.