Award shows are fun — as long as Quan wins

There are actors who accept awards casually. They smile slightly, read lethargic lists, then depart.
Then there’s Ke Huy Quan (shown here), who makes the award season worthwhile.
At previous ceremonies (Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, etc.), Quan jumped and hugged and beamed. Now he’s a front-runner at this year’s Academy Awards, at 8 p.m. ET Sunday (March 12) on ABC; so is his movie, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” and its star, Michelle Yeoh.
All of this follows a big gap. The pause in his acting career “has been for a long time,” Quan said.
Very long. In 1984, Quan – then 12 – co-starred in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” He did another major movie (“Goonies”), joined a TV show (two seasons of “Head of the Class”), then virtually vanished for three decades.
“During that entire time, I was working behind the camera,” he insisted. “I was content doing that, until I noticed that the landscape had changed drastically,” with roles surfacing for Asian actors.
One example of that is an upcoming project he shares with Yeoh and others: “American Born Chinese” will debut at the South by Southwest film festival on March 15 (three days after the Oscars), then start its eight-episode season on Disney+ sometime this spring.
That show began as a graphic novel, back in 2006. “It’s a seminal work of literature,” said producer-screenwriter Kelvin Yu. “They teach it in universities.” Yet it would take 17 years to reach the screen.
When Quan was cast (in a role that satirizes old biases), he was hesitant. “This was before ‘Everything Everywhere’ came out …. I was so scared and I said, ‘You’ve got to promise me one thing. (If) people hate my character and nobody wants to hire me again, you have to promise to give me a job.’”
Then the movie came out and the worries vanished.
“Everything” had seemed like a minor movie. It had a modest budget (variously reported as $14 million to $25 million), was from an indie producer (A24) and had a goofy concept: An ordinary woman (Yeoh) is thrust through multiple lives, as her meek husband (Quan) appears in many personas.
But reviews and word-of-mouth were strong. The film topped $100 million in the box office, before moving to Showtime and to the Showtime add-on to Paramount+. It airs at 6:35 p.m. Saturday (March 11) on Showtime; the next day, it leads the Oscars with 11 nominations, including best-picture and ones for Yeoh, Quan and more.
Quan, 51, was born in Saigon and fled with his parents and eight sibling when he was about 7. The next year, they reached the U.S.; four years later, he was Indiana Jones’ sidekick.
By his late teens, roles were scarce. “It was very difficult to be an Asian actor at that time,” he said.
Fortunately, he had added other skills. On the “Indiana Jones” set, he’d learned Taekwondo; at the University of Southern California, he learned filmmaking. He worked (in the U.S., Canada and Asia) as a fight coordinator and assistant director.
Then “Crazy Rich Asians” spurred a belated surge in Asian roles. Quan points to the impact of Yeoh and others. “They’re the ones who really gave me the courage to dream again.”
And to win. Yeoh was named best actress by the National Board of Review, Quan was named best supporting actor by the Critics Choice Awards, both won at the Golden Gloves, the Screen Actors Guild, the AARP Movies for Grownups awards, the Independent Spirit awards and more. He became the beaming, hugging, jumping proof that the awardsseason can be fun.