“A full life is a life full of ups and downs, peaks and valleys because it’s what makes a beautiful landscape.” — Ke Huy Quan
March 13, 2023, might have become one of the most memorable days of the life of the Chinese-American actor Ke Huy Quan. He finally won his first Oscar award in his acting career amid the cheers of the audience at the Dolby stage and thousands of people watching him on TV. People love Ke Huy Quan not only for his acting skills and warm, carefree personality but also because they know the difficulties he had to face to be finally standing on that stage.
Johnathan Luke Ke Huy Quan was born on August 20, 1971, in Ho Chi Minh City. In 1979, his family, including his parents and eight siblings, immigrated to Los Angeles, USA, and his life as an Asian American began. Ke Huy Quan’s acting career started in 1983 when Hollywood casting agents came to Chinatown where he lived to find an Asian boy for Steven Spielberg’s new movie (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). As Ke Huy Quan shared, his younger brother went to audition for the role, and he only tagged along to direct his acting. Fortunately, the producer recognized Ke Huy Quan’s talent and chose him among over 6,000 children auditioning for the character of Short Round. Thus, after only four years in the US, he played an important role in Spielberg’s movie alongside A-listed Harrison Ford. Only a few months later, he played Data in the movie The Goonies. It seemed like he had stepped on the road to becoming a child star in Hollywood, but his acting opportunities gradually faded away after The Goonies. He only appeared briefly in a few TV shows and movies, and then disappeared entirely from the big screen. Success came to him too early, so in his teenage years, Ke Huy Quan struggled to face the reality that no one wanted to hire him for acting anymore. He had to audition for nameless with only 1–2 lines, and unfortunately, he was rejected for those roles too. Once a child starred in a Spielberg’s movie, now not even the common roles were offered to him. Ke Huy Quan didn’t know what to do except blame himself. He shared, “So, I thought I wasn’t tall enough, I wasn’t good-looking enough, I was not a good enough actor. I didn’t have the maturity to think they were just not writing roles for Asian actors. I thought if I were six feet tall, I would be a working actor. If I had the traditional training… All these insecurities started flooding my head and I thought I was the problem. It was a painful period, and I was so lost. I was confused, I was miserable, I was very dispirited.”
Not giving up his movie dream, he switched from acting to behind-the-scenes positions such as assistant fight choreographer for the X-Men movie and assistant director for Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wa. His life and career went pretty normal until 2018 when he watched the movie Crazy Rich Asians three times at the theater. Ke Huy Quan cried while watching the movie because he wanted to stand in front of the camera with the Asian cast. During that year, he and his wife, Echo Quan, had a conversation that lasted the entire year about his desire to return to acting. His wife supported him, but at the same time, she warned him about the disappointment he had to go through in his teenage years. Ke Huy Quan was afraid of failing again, but what he feared the most was the regret of not daring to live with this dream again when he was 60 or 70 years old. So he asked his manager to find him a new role, and he was called to audition for the role of Waymond Wang in Everything Everywhere All at Once. Ke Huy Quan didn’t know that this role would completely turn his life around. After the audition, he was confident that he did well and that the role would be his. However, days, weeks, and months passed by, and he didn’t hear anything. His hope of returning to acting gradually dwindled. It was then that his wife said, “You will get this role because you said that this role was written specifically for you, and you want it more than anything. You will get it.” And his wife was right.
When he received this role, Ke Huy Quan didn’t expect that it would bring him dozens of big and small awards, including an Oscar. At that time, he only wanted a job. His portrayal of Waymond Wang in Everything Everywhere All at Once touched the audience with his strong emotions, as if he had suppressed those emotions for 25 years and finally had the chance to burst them all out. Ke Huy Quan once shared that he started his career at the peak, so he couldn’t break through anymore and the only way was going down. At the Golden Globe Awards, Ke Huy Quan said, “For so many years, I was afraid I had nothing more to offer. No matter what I did, I would never surpass what I achieved as a kid. Thankfully, more than 30 years later, two guys thought of me. They remembered that kid, and they gave me an opportunity to try again. Everything that has happened since has been unbelievable.”
The character of Waymond Wang in Everything Everywhere All at Once plays an extremely important role in breaking toxic stereotypes of Asian men in movies and in real life, and shows us another side of masculinity. For a long time, in the eyes of Hollywood filmmakers, Asian characters could only have unattractive looks compared to white and black characters and have the personality of an eccentric bookworms. This harmful stereotype has persisted for decades, ingraining in the subconscious of audiences that Asian men are exactly like how they are portrayed on screen. In episode 137 of the Feeling Asian Podcast, Ke Huy Quan expressed that masculinity should not be measured by the size of one’s biceps, but by their capacity for empathy and love towards others. Waymond’s statement about kindness could resonate with viewers since Ke Huy Quan is known for being a lovable person in real life, exuding positivity to anyone that has a chance to communicate with him. Both Waymond Wang and Ke Huy Quan serve as role models, embodying the ideal of a mature man and father that young men should aspire to be.
Ke Huy Quan can be seen as one of the biggest inspirations of 2022. He is proof, albeit rare, that dreams have no expiration date. Pursuing a dream in this harsh reality is incredibly difficult, and at some point in that journey, one may feel discouraged and want to give up, as Ke Huy Quan once did. However, he did not completely abandon his dream, only taking a break from it. Whether that break lasts 5, 10, or 30 years, we can always get back up and continue to chase it. He and Michelle Yeoh (who played Evelyn in Everything Everywhere All at Once) won their first Oscar at the ages of 51 and 60, respectively, proving that there is no fixed age standard for dreams to become a reality.
From someone who never thought that the Oscar would be associated with his name, Ke Huy Quan has become the first Chinese-American actor to win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. As movie lovers, we have followed Ke Huy Quan’s crazy journey for more than a year and witnessed a satisfying conclusion in his film. With this resounding success, Ke Huy Quan hopes that the film conveys messages of love and empathy to the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community during a time when discrimination against yellow people is becoming more prevalent after the Covid pandemic. Production company A24 has created opportunities for Asian representation in Hollywood, such as Minari, The Farewell, After Yang, and Everything Everywhere All at Once. This victory of a film like Everything Everywhere All at Once highlights the diversity and development of the film industry, while also contributing to the reduction of racism and racial discrimination in society. To conclude his acceptance speech at this year’s Oscars, Ke Huy Quan gave advice to those struggling to pursue their dreams: “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!”
*The article was published in An ninh The gioi Newspaper in Vietnamese on 26/3/2023
