1 Facebook Meme Helped Loki Star Ke Huy Quan Land Oscar-Winning Role 30 Years After Calling It Quits
American actor Ke Huy Quan’s career saw new heights after he returned from his decades-long acting hiatus. He rose to fame as a child actor for his portrayal of Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and Data in The Goonies (1985). He also appeared in some movies in the 1990s, following which he worked as a choreographer and assistant director for a long time.
Ke Huy Quan came back stronger than a ’90s trend with his role as Waymond Wang in the critically acclaimed drama Everything Everywhere All at Once. He once revealed how he fell on the radar of the directors of the movie for a hilarious reason.
Ke Huy Quan’s Casting Was Catalyzed by a Facebook Meme
For someone who had been on such a long-acting break, it is nothing short of a miracle that Ke Huy Quan won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Waymond Wang in Everything Everywhere All at Once. This win made him one of the two Asian actors to have achieved this feat, not to mention that he is the first Vietnam-born actor to have done so.
During The Hollywood Reporter‘s Actor Roundtable, Quan revealed how his The Goonies co-star Jeff Cohen, who has now become an entertainment lawyer, represented him for the role of Waymond Wang. The former said that the producer of Everything Everywhere All at Once had never imagined that he would be making a deal for Chunk (Cohen) and Data (Quan).
Ke Huy Quan then went on to say how a Facebook meme of 2020 Democratic Party presidential primary candidate Andrew Yang landed him on the radar of the movie’s directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, popularly known as the Daniels. The meme read: “Short Round is all grown up and he’s running for president.”
This is what made the directors wonder what Quan was doing at the time. Thankfully, it was around the same time that the actor got himself a representative.
Michelle Yeoh’s Crazy Rich Asians Rekindled Ke Huy Quan’s Interest in Acting
There were few opportunities for Asian actors in Hollywood when Ke Huy Quan was transitioning from child to adult actor. So, he decided to quit acting for a while. It was not until he saw Michelle Yeoh’s 2018 movie Crazy Rich Asians that he decided to make a comeback- a grand one at that.
In Entertainment Weekly‘s digital cover story for Everything Everywhere All at One, Quan recounted how he got an agent to represent him following the success of Crazy Rich Asians, saying:
“I called a friend who is an agent, and I said, ‘Hey would you like to rep me?’ and this is decades without an agent. Two weeks later, I got this call about this project that’s written and directed by the Daniels and stars Michelle Yeoh. I was like, oh my God! I mean, Michelle is the reason why I’m even thinking about getting back into acting in the first place.”
Director Daniel Kwan said that Ke Huy Quan was one of the first people they had auditioned for the role of Waymond, and had their hearts set on having him play the character. Evidently, they made a great choice.
