Ke Huy Quan

Ke Huy Quan, born August 20, 1971, in Saigon, South Vietnam, and raised in Hong Kong as a refugee before being resettled in the United States when he was eleven, is one of the most remarkable figures in recent Academy Award history — a child actor who rose to stardom in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and The Goonies (1985), disappeared from Hollywood for twenty years due to a lack of opportunities for Asian American actors, and then returned to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) at age fifty, a comeback story of such extraordinary emotional resonance that his acceptance speech, in which he reflected on arriving in America as a refugee and eventually realizing the American dream, was among the most moving in the history of the ceremony. Born in Saigon to Vietnamese parents of Chinese descent, he fled Vietnam as a refugee with his family following the fall of Saigon in 1975, spending several years in a Hong Kong refugee camp before the family was resettled in Los Angeles. He was discovered by Steven Spielberg's casting director while accompanying his brother to an audition and was cast as Short Round — the resourceful, beloved young sidekick to Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones — in Temple of Doom (1984) at age twelve. His second major role as Data in The Goonies (1985) confirmed his status as one of the most popular young actors of the decade. After a period of smaller roles in the early 1990s, the lack of meaningful opportunities for Asian American actors in Hollywood effectively ended his acting career, and he transitioned to work as a stunt coordinator and choreographer for films including X-Men (2000) and behind-the-scenes work across the industry. His return to acting was prompted by the success of Crazy Rich Asians (2018) in demonstrating that Asian-led films could achieve mainstream commercial success. His casting in Everything Everywhere All at Once led to a performance of breathtaking emotional generosity and physical commitment as Waymond Wang, the gentle husband whose optimism in the face of despair becomes the film's moral core.