Ke Huy Quan was an ’80s icon who left acting behind. For his role in 'Everything Everywhere All at Once,' he called on his past selves. BilgeEbiri reports
Photo: Pat Martin This article was featured in One Great Story, New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly.
Quan as Short Round. Photo: MARKA/Alamy Stock Photo While the film was a huge hit in 1984, it was also controversial, criticized for its gore and its outdated, exotic-cultures-of-Asia story line. Still, kids loved Short Round. We wanted to be Short Round, the only child lead in a series we worshipped. A year later, Quan played the boy inventor and intrepid adventurer Data in another Spielberg-produced blockbuster, The Goonies.
It wasn’t — but the Daniels became taken with the idea of reviving Quan’s acting career. “The hardest thing about finding this role was that it required a lot of different skill sets,” says Kwan. “He had to be able to speak Cantonese, Mandarin, English. He had to know martial arts. But he also had to be an incredibly believable sappy pushover.” The directors imagined someone like Jackie Chan, who can serve as sweet comic relief one minute and perform dazzling feats of heroism the next.
We make our way to the historic Chinatown public school Castelar Elementary, where Spielberg’s casting director, Mike Fenton, discovered Ke in 1983. The Temple of Doom team was desperate, searching all over the world — Hong Kong, Singapore, London, New York — to find the right child to play Short Round. But, strangely enough, they had not tried L.A. Ke’s younger brother David tried out for the part first.
He spent the next decade or so working on productions in the U.S., Hong Kong, and elsewhere, mostly as an assistant fight choreographer and assistant director. He learned the difference between how Hollywood and Hong Kong crews do action scenes: The former tends to plan everything in advance, while the latter choreograph as they go, making scenes look fresher, more spontaneous, and creative.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Brittney Griner: Mercury star's life as complicated as Russian detainment suggestsBrittney Griner's road has taken her from basketball superstardom to detention on drug charges in Russia.
Read more »
Scarlett Johansson was inspired by ‘RHONJ’ for ‘Don Jon’ wardrobeIn Vogue’s ‘Life in Looks’ the Marvel star shared the surprising inspo behind one of her character’s outfits.
Read more »
George Robinson To Star In Feature Take Of Texas Monthly Article ‘Still Life’; Kevin James & Jeff Sussman ProducingEXCLUSIVE: George Robinson, the star of Netflix’s Sex Education, is attached to headline the movie Still Life based on the award-winning Texas Monthly 2009 article of the same name written by…
Read more »
Kim Kardashian won’t publicly criticize Kanye West on new TV showWhile the reality star may have limits on what she says about West, the rapper has been less private about his opinions of Kardashian and her personal life.
Read more »
How Thing About Pam Cast Compares to The People They Portray - E! OnlineEveryone is talking about NBC's new true crime drama, The Thing About Pam. So how closely do star Renée Zellweger and the rest of the cast resemble their real-life counterparts?
Read more »
See Original Catwoman Julie Newmar Now at 88 — Best LifeJulie Newmar became the first actor to play Catwoman when she starred on 'Batman' in the 1960s. Find out about her life today.
Read more »