If it is already difficult for an actor to play a character that will become a cinematographic icon, imagine two of them and being just one kid. But… what happened to Ke Huy Quan?
Debut in style
Born in 1971 in Saigon (Vietnam)Ke Huy Quan (who you may know as Jonathan Ke Quan), fled his native country in 1978. Along with his parents and eight siblings, they ended up immigrating to the US, settling in California.
In 1984 and at just 12 years old, Quan walked through the front door in hollywood: neither more nor less than accompanying Harrison Ford as his faithful friend Plug in ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’. A year after such a film debut, the actor made a double playing Data in the legendary Richard Donner film ‘The Goonies’.
His career seemed to have peaked as soon as he started and it is that both tapes became eighties classics almost instantly. Soon after, he starred in several films including the Japanese ‘Passenger’, ‘Breathing Fire’ and ‘The Man from California (alongside his goonie partner Sean Astin).
He also participated in several series such as ‘A life together’, ‘Top of class’ and in an episode of ‘Tales from the Crypt’. His last roles were in 1997, in the Taiwanese film ‘Red Pirate’ and he the Hong Kong girl ‘Second Time Around’ in 2002.
Quan says that, despite the fact that many predicted a great career for him after his first two films, the job opportunities that arose afterwards were increasingly reduced until entering dry dock as he entered adulthood.
In the early 2000s, made the difficult decision to leave acting and continue dedicating himself to the cinema but behind the cameras. He graduated from USC (School of Motion Picture Arts) and his first job was as a choreographer for the action sequences in the first ‘X-Men’.
quan learned taekwondo when he did the ‘Indiana Jones’ and that earned him the role of choreography consultant in a co-production between Asia and the US like ‘The One’. He also played the role of assistant director in the latter and in ‘2046’, the third part of the trilogy created by Wong Kar Wai.
they would have to It’s been almost 20 years since your last job. to get Quan back on the acting bug. It was the Daniels who managed to recruit him to play Waymond Wang (and his multiverse variants) in the huge ‘All at once everywhere’.
Apart from her role in this fantastic story with michelle yeohQuan has also been part of two recent projects: the Netflix movie ‘Ohana: Hawaiian Treasure’ and season 2 of the Disney+ and Marvel series ‘Loki’.
The actor said it was ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ what it gave him back the desire to act and his return has been in one of the best films of 2022. Let’s hope he’s back to stay because, without a doubt, he is one of the icons of our childhood cinephiles who deserved to have had better luck.