Though he shot to fame as the costar of two major Steven Spielberg fantasy-adventure movies in the ’80s, The Goonies and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Ke Huy Quan mostly retired from acting. For almost three decades following a couple of TV roles in the late ’80s/early ’90s, he rarely appeared again. This year, however, he seems poised for a major return. Following a small, self-referential part in the Goonies-like Finding Ohana for Netflix, he’s in the Michelle Yeoh multiverse adventure Everything Everywhere All at Once. And he just signed on for Destin Daniel Cretton’s Disney+ comic adaptation American Born Chinese.
Turns out it was the script for the former that brought him back to acting. He tells Empire, “I started reading it at 1am, and I didn’t finish until 5am. I laughed so hard and so long, I woke up my wife. And by the time she came out, I had tears running down my cheeks. She said, ‘Are you okay?’ I said, ‘I love this script. And I think this role is written for me.’”
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Taking the role made him realize he wanted to act again, after the career previously let him down. “Being on a set with George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford, for an actor, is like you’ve died and gone to heaven, basically,” he said. But after those two roles that endeared him to ’80s kids his age, “as I got older, there were not a lot of offers, and even when there was one, it was very stereotypical. It wasn’t fun to audition for those.”
Now, however, we can consider him un-retired. And with Asian-American filmmakers and stars breaking through like never before, the non-stereotypical roles are out there. Says Quan now, “I want to be here.”
Are you glad to see him back? Let us know in comments.
Recommended Purchase: Indiana Jones 4-Movie Collection
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