Photo: Rich Fury/Getty
Ke Huy Quan’s Hollywood story is the stuff of fairy tales — or a true Hollywood fairy tale, that is.
Just a few years after landing in Los Angeles with his family after fleeing their native Vietnam after the Vietnam war, Quan found himself tagging along with his brother to an open audition forIndiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The casting director overheard Quan, then 12, practicing lines with his sibling and asked him if he also wanted to give it a shot. He booked the part.
“Never in my wildest imagination did I think I would end up being an actor,” Quan, 51, tells PEOPLE in the latest issue. “But I fell in love with it. That movie changed my life and my entire family’s life.”
Despite feeling slightly intimidated at first, playing Indy’s intrepid sidekick Short Round and working with directorSteven SpielbergandHarrison Ford, Quan says he learned so much being on that set.
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“It was tough,” he says. “I was waiting for the phone to ring, and it rarely did.” In the early 2000s, Quan says he made the “very difficult decision” to step away from acting. After graduating from film school at USC, he turned his attention behind the scenes, becoming a successful assistant director and stunt coordinator.
Twenty years later, after watching 2018’sCrazy Rich Asians, Quan decided it might be time to return to his first love, acting.
“I was happy working behind the camera but I had serious FOMO,” he says with a laugh. “I wanted to be up there with my fellow Asian actors!”
Similar to his beginnings in the business, Quan booked the first role he auditioned for, in the critically acclaimed genre-bending fantasyEverything Everywhere All at OnceoppositeMichelle Yeoh, in which he plays three versions of one character.
Everything Everywhere All at Once.Allyson Riggs
“When I read the script I thought it was written for me because theyareme. I understood every single one of them,” he says of Waymond Wang, a loving husband who hops through multiple universes trying to help his wife (Yeoh) save the world. It’s a deeply personal role for Quan, and one that he feels is right on time, despite his acting hiatus.
“I don’t think I could have played Waymond had you given me the role 10, 15 years ago,” he says. “Looking back upon my life, all the highs and lows, I reached deep within me to pour my entire life into these three different characters.”
In addition to showing off his acting chops again, Quan’s martial arts skills are also on display in the film, during a particularly intense and unique “fanny pack fight scene” which he practiced at the L.A. home he shares with Echo, his wife of many years.
“I kept swinging it in my house, everywhere I went, and I was constantly breaking things,” he says with a laugh. “She wasn’t too happy about it.”
In addition to mastering a unique type of fight choreography for the role, Quan quickly bonded with costar and now friend, Yeoh.
For much more on Ke Huy Quan, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, now on newsstands
Allyson Riggs
“He’s the most wonderful on — and off camera husband,” says Yeoh. “He’s loving, charming and funny, and his wife is now my good sister-friend. We are very blessed that he’s back on the big silver screen.”
“For many, many years people recognized me only as a child [actor] because that was pretty much the last time they saw me up on the screen. I’m hoping when people see me now they go, ‘Oh my God! You’re Waymond fromEverything Everywhere All at Once— and you were also inIndiana Jones[and]Goonies!’ "
Speaking of which, Quan is still close friends with several members of theGooniescast likeSean AstinandCorey Feldman, but primarily Jeff Cohen, who fans know as “Chunk.” Cohen is now a successful entertainment lawyer who represents Quan, and was of course involved in his contract forEverything Everywhere All at Once.
“We’ll be friends for life. He’s myGooniesbrother,” says the actor. “In fact, my [Everything Everywhere] producer told me a really funny story the other day. He said never in his life did he think that he would have to talk to Chunk to get Data to be in his movie. I thought that was hilarious.”
Everything Everywhere All at Onceis now playing in theaters.
source: people.com
