Ke Huy Quan Biography

Ke Huy Quan is the actor whose interrupted career began with the 1984 film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and continued four decades later with a surprising Oscar win for the 2022 film Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Ke Huy Quan was born in 1971 in Saigon, South Vietnam (now Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam). His family fled in 1978, reaching the United States in 1979. Quan had no acting experience when, four years later, he was picked out at an open casting call for the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom at his Los Angeles elementary school. Director Steven Spielberg cast him as Short Round, the annoyingly plucky orphan who becomes the sidekick of hero Indian Jones (Harrison Ford).

Temple of Doom was a hit when released in 1984; the next year, Quan joined an ensemble cast of kids in the hit film The Goonies. Over the next decade he had roles in a smattering of films, and was briefly a regular on the TV shows Together We Stand (1986–1987) and Head of the Class (1990 to 1991). But with roles not coming his way, Quan changed paths. He went to film school at the University of Southern California, graduated in 1999, and began working behind the camera as an assistant director and stunt coordinator.

In the late 2010s, inspired by the success of the film Crazy Rich Asians, Quan returned to acting. Almost immediately he was cast in the surreal multiverse film Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022, with Michelle Yeoh). Quan played multiple versions, from nebbish to superstud, of mild-mannered husband Waymond Wang. The role won him a 2023 Academy Award nomination as best supporting actor, and on the big night Quan beat out distinguished actors like Judd Hirsch and Barry Keoghan to win the Oscar.