an excited Ke Huy Quan tearfully collected one of the first awards of the night at the 95th edition of the Oscars which was held this Sunday in Los Angeles.
“Mom, I just won an Oscar! They say that stories like this only happen in the movies. I can’t believe this is happening to me.”
THE ACTOR WHO ALSO PARTICIPATED IN “INDIANA JONES” AS A CHILD, HAD AN EMOTIONAL MEETING WITH HARRISON FORD
“My journey started on a ship. I spent a year in a refugee camp and somehow ended up here on the biggest stage in Hollywood.he exclaimed.
After thanking his mother and the rest of his family, the Vietnamese-American actor dedicated the award to his wife.
“I owe everything to the love of my life, my wife, Echo, who told me month after month, year after year that one day my time would come,” he said.
“To all of you, please keep your dreams alive. Thank you for welcoming me back.”
an exciting story
Quan has had one of the most incredible narratives in this year’s Oscar race. As a child actor, Steven Spielberg chose him for the second Indiana Jones film (“Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”, 1984).
His other notable role from that time was as the resourceful and multi-inventive boy Data in the 1985 film “The Goonies.”
But he gave up acting in the late 1990s, when the work had sold out.
Then, in 2020, everything changed when he went to the casting of Everything Everywhere All At Once (“Everything everywhere at the same time”), to play the husband of Michelle Yeoh’s character.
The actor told the BBC before the 2023 Oscars ceremony how pleased he was with the success of the film.
“What resonated with people was the message of the film. It’s about kindness, it’s about love, it’s about family, it’s about empathy,” she said.
“I was 12 years old when Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were looking for an Asian boy to star in Indiana Jones opposite Harrison Ford. That was my first movie, and that was 38 years ago! That movie changed my life,” he added.
Quan recalled how in his late teens and early twenties he spent a lot of time waiting by the phone for a call from his agent to let him know about an opportunity to audition for something.
“Instead, I saw a dead end. I did not see an easy path for me. I thought he wasn’t handsome enough, he wasn’t tall enough, there just weren’t many opportunities for Asian actors,” she thought.
That’s when he buried the acting bug “for a long, long time,” until he saw a movie in 2018 called Crazy Rich Asians.
“I noticed that the landscape was changing and one night I had a conversation with my wife. I told him I wanted to get back into acting,” she recalled.
“And when the fear of regret overcame any fear of going back, that’s when I decided: I have to do this.”
Two weeks later, like a sign of fate, he received a call to be a part of “Everything Everywhere at the Same Time”.
Quan believes that he would not have been able to play his character, Waymond, if he had chosen a different path in life.
“I needed all those life experiences that I’ve been through all these years.”
“I was so worried about turning 60 and looking back and saying, ‘Wow, how come I didn’t have the courage to go back into acting?’”
“I am very happy to have made this decision and whatever happens in 10 years, I am looking forward to it, I am very optimistic.”
As we know “Everything everywhere at the same time” won a total of 10 categories at the Oscars.
Best Picture, Best Actress with Michelle Yeoh, Best Supporting Actor with Ke Huy Quan, Best Supporting Actress with Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu, Best Costume Design, Best Directing by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Best Editing, Best Song with “This Is a Life”, Best Soundtrack and Best Original Screenplay.
