Ke Huy Quan thought his career was over 30 years ago. Then he won an Oscar.

When Ke Huy Quan landed his first role as a child actor in the 1984 film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, he admitted he felt "lucky". 

The 51-year-old actor tearfully accepted the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor at the 95th Academy Awards today. 

Quan began his speech by talking about his fraught journey towards stardom. "My journey began on a boat. I spent a year in a refugee camp. And somehow, I ended up here on Hollywood's biggest stage. They say stories like this only happen in the movies. I cannot believe it's happening to me! This is the American dream." 

The actor also gave an emotional shout-out to his 84-year-old mother, who was watching the ceremony at home: "Mum! I just won an Oscar!". 

Born in Vietnam in 1971, Quan was a future child star in, what was at the time, a war-torn country. At just seven years old, he fled his home country and found refuge in Hong Kong with his father and six siblings, while his mother went to Malaysia.

Watch Ke Huy Quan's speech at the 80th Golden Globe Awards after winning Best Supporting Actor. Post continues after video. 

The whole family wouldn't reunite for a year until they settled down in Los Angeles in 1979. 

Their reunion was described as one of the "great" moments of Quan's life but in the land of boundless opportunities, he was handed the next great achievement of his young life. 

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Four years later, in 1983, Quan accompanied his brother to an open casting call for a motion picture at his school in Chinatown, Los Angeles. 

"I was giving him direction and notes from behind the camera," he told Yahoo Entertainment. 

The casting director took notice of him and advised he come in for his own audition.

After meeting Steven Spielberg, he was handpicked for the role as Short Round, Indiana Jones' youthful sidekick – it was a position production had trouble casting until the vibrant Quan came along.

Acting alongside Harrison Ford for his first role ever was an intimidating challenge, but the actor said the pair developed somewhat of a bond. It was Ford's first time acting with a child too. Quan said the Hollywood legend took time to work with Spielberg behind the camera to "get that performance out of me".

Ford was also the one who taught him how to swim.

Ke Huy Quan in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Image: Paramount Pictures.

Fame followed swiftly after its release.

But the actor said working with Hollywood giants at such a young age meant there was "nowhere to go but downhill".

"I didn’t go looking to be an actor; acting found me. To work with Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Harrison Ford on your first movie…. There was nowhere to go but downhill," he told LA Times. "I think that’s why, when I got older and the road became rugged, I felt like I didn’t pay my dues. I started questioning myself when the phone stopped ringing and the opportunities dried up."

A year later, he was handed his next starring role in The Goonies – a film that followed the crazy adventures of seven kids. It became a cult classic. 

"I walked into Steven's office, and he said: 'Ke, I got you your next movie. It's called The Goonies and it's about seven kids who go on an adventure. You will play Data, who is kind of like James Bond with all these amazing gadgets, but they never work unless your life depends on it,'" he told Yahoo Entertainment. 

"Sure enough, a few months later, I was on a set with six other kids seeing a full-sized pirate ship in front of us."

The Goonies. Image: Amblin Entertainment.

The roles Quan landed were nothing short of legendary – but they were not only few and far between but also incorporated harmful Asian stereotypes. 

While people told Quan they wanted to be like his characters when they grew up, he acknowledged Hollywood's poor portrayal of Asian people. 

"When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I really wanted to pursue acting and there were just not a lot of opportunities for me," he recalled. "I remember reading a lot of scripts where the Asian character either didn't even have a name, or if they did, they would have two or three lines. And every Asian actor in the industry at that time was fighting for this tiny role."

The lack of opportunity was discouraging and by the 1990s, he moved behind the camera once again and took on work as a stunt coordinator and assistant director in both Hollywood and Hong Kong. 

In that time, he also met his wife Echo Quan. 

Ke Huy Quan and Echo Quan at the 80th Golden Globes. Image: Getty.

He admitted the career path made him "content" enough but in 2018, the itch to act came crawling back up again when he watched the Jon M. Chu's blockbuster romantic comedy, Crazy Rich Asians. 

"I had serious FOMO watching that movie," he told Yahoo Entertainment. "I wished I was up there with my fellow Asian actors, and that was really when I decided to get back into acting."

And when he did, he got the role that would be his "second act" – as Waymond Wang in Everything Everywhere All At Once. Alongside fellow titan in the industry, Michelle Yeoh, the pair went on an action-packed adventure to save the multiverse. 

Everything Everywhere All At Once. Image: A24.

Earlier this year, Quan was honoured for his craft when he won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. 

In his acceptance speech, he touched on his struggles as a young Asian actor in Hollywood.

"I felt so very lucky to have been chosen, but as I grew older, I started to wonder if that was it... if that was just luck," Quan said.

"For so many years, I was afraid I had nothing more to offer. That no matter what I did, I would never surpass what I achieved as a kid."

Quan paid tribute to the Everything Everywhere All At Once directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, saying: "Thankfully, more than 30 years later, two guys thought of me. They remembered that kid and they gave me an opportunity to try again."

Quan's win makes him the first Vietnam-born actor to win in the Supporting Actor category, and the second actor of Asian descent to win after Haing S Ngor took home the trophy for The Killing Fields in 1984. 

As fate would have it, it was also the very same year Quan starred in Temple of Doom.

After over 30 long years, Quan is back, and he's determined to make his mark. 

"For many years, I just had to be realistic," he said of Asian representation in media. "Now, I don’t have to be only realistic. I can also be optimistic."

Feature Image: Getty/Paramount Pictures.

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