When Ke Huy Quan took the stage at the Dolby Theater to accept the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, he received more than one golden statuette. The ovation of the public was the culmination of a path that saw the actor of “Tudo Em Todo o Lado ao Simtempo”, away from the industry for decades due to lack of opportunities for Asian actors, return and, (almost) at first, win the highest award in the Hollywood industry.

From Indiana Jones partner to Wong Kar-wai assistant

Few will still remember the actor, currently 51 years old. Those who still remember will remember the roles of him in the 1980s as children. First, in “Indiana Jones and the Lost Temple” (1984), as Short Round, the partner of Harrison Ford’s famous archaeologist, and then as Data, the young inventor of the group of young protagonists of “The Goonies” (1985).

As he told the New York Times, it all started by chance. “Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were looking for a Chinese boy to appear in ‘Indiana Jones and the Lost Temple.’ (…) My brother’s teacher thought that he should do a foundry, and I went with him; while he performed, I gave him instructions on what to do and say. Director of foundry he saw me and said ‘do you want to try?’“.

His roles delighted younger audiences in the 1980s, but the Vietnamese-American actor failed to translate the success into an adult career as Asian roles were in short supply in Hollywood:

When I hit 20, the phone stopped ringing. My agent would call me and say: ‘There is this paper, there are three lines and it was like a Vietnamese soldier. And not even that role could do it.

Little by little, Quan gave up the dream of acting. At the University of California he studied film production and, with experience in martial arts, he choreographed several films of the genre, in Hong Kong and in the US, such as the first “X-Men” (2000), and Jet Li. film “Explosive Force” (2001). In 2004, she worked together with the famous Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai in the movie “2046” (2004).

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How it started>How it’s going

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The “crazy and rich” return to the dream of representation

The Oscar winner said he was satisfied working behind the camera, but the truth is that the acting “pet” never left him. In 2018, everything changed thanks, of course, to the cinema. “A little movie came out called ‘Crazy Rich Asians.’ I was so inspired by the film that the idea of ​​going back to my origins began to spin in my head.”

The “little movie,” a romantic comedy about an Asian family (in which one of the leading roles was played by Michelle Yeoh) was a box office success, grossing nearly $250 million, and was a major step in creating more papers. for Asian or Hollywood actors.

I called an agent friend of mine and asked him: ‘I’m thinking of acting again, would you like to represent me?’ and literally two weeks later he calls me and says ‘there’s a movie written by the Daniels and starring Michelle Yeoh. And there’s a role you could play, where you’re her husband.’”

The bet won. “Everything Everywhere at the Same Time” turned out to be Ke Huy Quan’s second role since his comeback, and judging by its success, it will be far from his only one. Even so, he himself still can’t seem to believe in success; When he took the stage to receive the Oscar, his speech, through tears, was enlightening: “Mom, I won an Oscar!”

After being announced as an Oscar winner, emotion seized the actor