Guest on the Happy Sad Confused podcast two months before his Oscar for Best Supporting Role in “Everything, Everywhere All at Once”, Ke Huy Quan recounted his struggling years in Hollywood before returning to favor with this film.
“Mom, I just won an Oscar!” The emotion of Ke Huy Quan will remain one of the major moments of the 95th Academy Awards, marked by the triumph of the multiverse of Everything Everywhere All at Once, winner of seven statuettes.
An extremely moving return to the forefront performed in front of a standing ovation from all of Hollywood, including Steven Spielberg who revealed it with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Goonies.
A historic sequence too, Ke Huy Quan becoming the second Asian actor to win the statuette, thirty-eight years after Haing S. Ngor crowned in 1985 for The Tear. Ke Huy Quan had disappeared from the screens from the 90s, officiating in the stunts and the choreography of the fights, in particular because he could not find interesting roles due to his origins.
Kevin Feige’s call
Guest two months earlier, in January 2023, by Josh Horowitz in his podcast Happy Sad ConfusedKe Huy Quan recounted how this film, the first from the A24 studio to cross $100 million in revenue worldwide, allowed him to be contacted by Kevin Feige in person to join the MCU, in this case the season 2 of Loki.
“When our movie came out, the first phone call I got was from Kevin Feige, who kindly asked me if I wanted to join the MCU. Then I called Jonathan and the whole gang, and I told them, ‘You know what? Nobody wants to hire me except Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, the Daniels and Kevin Feige. It’s incredible!’ 2022 is a year that I will always remember, because it is one of the happiest of my life.”
Years of hardship
And to evoke in the process his struggling years in Hollywood. “I remember doing Indiana Jones 2 in 1984 and The Goonies in 1985. Then I got on a CBS TV show in 1986. Then the roles got smaller and the opportunities were rarer. I was waiting between a year and a year and a half before getting a job.
And if you look at my resume, some of those jobs were really tiny, very minor character, so I would wait a year and a half, work a week, and wait another year for the chance to audition again. “.