Ke Huy Quan took a nearly 20-year acting break due to a lack of opportunities for Asian actors.
Jonathan Ke Quan, also known as Ke Huy Quan, is an American actor, born on August 20, 1971. “The Goonies” (1985) and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” (1984) helped Quan become a well-known actor early in his career. After a few appearances in the 1990s, Quan took a nearly 20-year break from acting, during which he worked as a stunt choreographer and assistant director.
Quan struggled to find acting work in the United States as an adult. He eventually gave up acting and enrolled in the University of Southern California's film program. Quan was asked by Corey Yuen to travel to Toronto, Ontario, after graduating from USC to assist in choreographing the fighting scenes for “X-Men” (2000). He worked behind the scenes on numerous productions in Asia and the US for the following ten years. He worked with Yuen once more as “The One”'s stunt coordinator (2001). Quan assisted Wong Kar-wai in the direction of his film “2046” (2004).
With the science fiction movie “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once” (2022), he made a comeback to acting. He received numerous honors for his performance, including an Oscar, Critics Choice, Golden Globe, Independent Spirit, and SAG Award.
How was Ke Huy Quan's comeback received?
After "Crazy Rich Asians" achieved success in 2018, Quan was motivated to resume acting. Daniels began casting their movie "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once" that same year although he had trouble finding the right actor for Waymond Wang, a character who would appear in the movie in three different guises. Daniel Kwan, the co-director, ran into Quan on Twitter and Quan was introduced as a cast member of "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once" in January 2020.
Quan's performance in the movie, which received nearly universal praise and media attention after its March 2022 release, eventually earned him a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Academy Award for the part.
Only two actors of Asian descent have received the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award; the other was Haing S. Ngor in 1985. Quan also made history by becoming the first Vietnamese-born actor to win an Oscar. He was the first Asian man to win in the category of supporting actor in a movie with his victory at the 2023 Screen Actors' Guild Awards.
He was hired in 2019 for a supporting role in the Netflix movie "Finding Ohana" (2021). Quan approached Jude Weng after overhearing her compare the movie to "Indiana Jones" and "The Goonies," both of which Quan had appeared in.
He was announced to have joined the cast of the "American Born Chinese'' TV adaptation for Disney+ in February 2022. Quan was revealed to have joined the cast of the second season of the Marvel Cinematic Universe television series "Loki" on Disney+ in September 2022.
What was Ke Huy Quan's debut movie?
As Harrison Ford's sidekick Short Round in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," Quan made his acting debut at the age of 12. At Castelar Elementary School, the casting director held auditions for several kids, including Quan's younger brother.
He co-starred in "The Goonies" in 1985 as inventor Richard "Data" Wang, one of the titular group of kids. In "It Takes a Thief," a 1986 Taiwanese film, he portrayed an orphan pickpocket. He co-starred with the Japanese idol singer Honda Minako in the 1987 film "Passengers" in Japan. In the short-lived TV show "Together We Stand" (1986–1987), he played Sam, and from 1990–1991 in the sitcom "Head of the Class," he played Jasper Kwong.
In 1991, he starred in the movie "Breathing Fire," and had a small role in “Encino Man” the following year. In the forty-episode, Mandarin-speaking Taiwan TV series "Eunuch & Carpenter" from 1993, he portrayed the lead character.
Where is Ke Huy Quan from?
Ke Huy Quan was born in South Vietnam's capital city of Saigon and he was born into an eight-sibling Chinese-American family. With the “Fall of Saigon” in 1975, North Vietnam seized control of the South; Quan and his family left Vietnam three years later. While Quan's mother and three additional siblings fled to Malaysia, he, along with his father and five siblings, fled to Hong Kong.
Quan's entire family was accepted to the US as part of the Refugee Admissions Program in 1979 after spending time in a Hong Kong refugee camp. Quan was raised in California, where he attended Alhambra High School and Mount Gleason Junior High School in Sunland-Tujunga, Los Angeles.
Quan continued his film studies at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, where he co-produced, shot, and edited the comedy-horror "Voodoo" with Gregg Bishop, the film's director. The film "Voodoo," which took home the audience award at the 2000 Slamdance Film Festival, is still shown to USC students today.
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