Watching Ke Huy Quan win Best Supporting Actor at this year's Academy Awards gave me some nostalgia. It resonated with happy memories from the past. I watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on DVD in the early 2000s.
Ke Huy Quan made his acting debut in 1984 (as a child actor) portraying the role of Strong Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom with Harrison Ford and Kate Capshaw and directed by Steven Spielberg.
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| Harrison Ford and Ke Huy Quan in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom |
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| Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, and Ke Huy Quan in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom |
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was the first movie I watched that really inspired me to write a novel. My young mind was so impressed with this movie that I re-wrote the script in Tagalog haha!
But I did not know Ke Huy Quan then, I thought he was a Chinese child actor. He was so impressive in that movie. He played Strong Round, the child sidekick of Harrison Ford.
Nearly 40 years later, Ke Huy Quan lives his Hollywood dream. He is a testimony that we should not give up on our dreams no matter what happens.
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| Ke Huy Quan wins Best Supporting Actor in the Oscars |
Ke Huy Quan, also known as Jonathan Ke Quan, was born on August 20, 1971, in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam to a family of Chinese ancestry.
In 1978, his family fled Vietnam. He arrived in a refugee camp in Hongkong with his father and five siblings while his mother and three siblings fled to Malaysia. In 1979, his family moved to the United States through the Refugee Resettlement Program of the United States.
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| Ke Huy Quan struggled to get an acting role in Hollywood when he became adult |
In 1984, he auditioned for the role of Strong Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and made his Hollywood debut. He made more movies while still a teenager but when he became an adult he struggled to thrive in a highly competitive environment in Hollywood due to limited opportunities for Asian actors.
He went back to school and earned a degree in Cinematic Arts from the University of Southern California in 1999. He shifted to a career behind the camera and collaborated with Hongkong filmmakers.
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| Two Asian winners at the Oscars |
In 2021, he was given another shot at fame when he was cast in Everything, Everywhere All at Once as Waymond Wang, the meek and goofy husband of Evelyn Wang (played by Michelle Yeoh). And the movie became a surprise hit, giving Ke Huy Quan numerous acting awards and citations.
Everything, Everywhere All at Once won big at the Oscars this year. Ke Huy Quan's co-stars, Michelle Yeoh, a Malaysian born actress, won best actress, and Jamie Lee-Curtis, won Best Supporting Actress. The film won best picture, best Director for Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan, and best film editing. and best original screenplay.
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| Major acting awards at the Oscars this year, from left: Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once), Michelle Yeoh (Everything, Everywhere All at Once), Brendan Fraser (The Whale), and Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything Everywhere All at Once) |
In his acceptance speech at the Academy Awards, Ke Huy Quan said:
“My journey started on a boat. I spent a year in a refugee camp, and somehow I ended up here, on Hollywood’s biggest stage. They say stories like this only happen in the movies—I cannot believe it’s happening to me. This, this is the American dream.”
He also thanked his wife, Echo Quan. “I owe everything to the love of my life, my wife, Echo, who month after month, year after year, for 20 years told me that one day, one day my time will come,” he said of his longtime partner. “Dreams are something you have to believe in. I almost gave up on mine. To all of you out there—please keep your dreams alive.”
Quan is only the second Asian actor to win the best supporting actor award at the Oscars. The first was Haing S. Ngor for The Killing Fields (directed by Oliver Stone) in 1984, ironically the year Ke Huy Quan made his acting debut as a child in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The Killing Fields was a film about the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia.
"I was famished for a role like this,” he said in an interview about his role as the optimistic Waymond Wang. But in the time between filming his pivotal role and the film’s smash hit release, Quan said, “I couldn’t get a single job. In fact, I lost my health insurance. It was a time when I was at my lowest. And then our movie came out, and it changed everything.”
Lessons from Ke Huy Quan's recent success:
Indeed, things happen for a reason and it's always for the best. That, yes, there's always time for everything, and we have to wait for that perfect time designed for us.
Ke Huy Quan's story is just like the life story of most of us. Seeking a better life somewhere, venturing into the unknown, trying all possible means to earn a living, and exploring opportunities to make our dreams come true.
But somewhere along the way, bad things happen. Fate never favors our effort so easily. Goals remain unrealized. It's a tough road.
But we need to work hard and continue believing in dreams that one day, we will understand our purpose in life and find out what's the right thing to do to realize our goals.
He has made everything beautiful in His time. God's time is always perfect. So we need to believe that there's a perfect time for us to shine and realize our dreams.
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