Irishmen Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan for Inisherin's Banshees along with Americans Judd Hirsch for The Fabelmans and Brian Tyree Henry for Causeway have little to do at the Oscars against the phenomenon Ke Huy Quan. The actor born in Saigon 51 years ago is the clear favorite to win the golden statuette in the category of best supporting actor for his role in the comedy about the multiverse All at once everywhere, in turn called to sweep the the gala on March 12 in Los Angeles.
Does his face ring a bell? Ke Huy Quan played 'Tapón' in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom alongside Harrison Ford and Data in The Goonies, two classics from the eighties under the Steven Spielberg label. Then series like A life together, The first of the class or Tales from the crypt would arrive. But the typecasting and discrimination he suffered because of his Asian features forced him to give up acting nearly three decades ago.
He graduated from the University of Southern California and reinvented himself as an assistant director and action sequence coordinator collaborating on Wong Kar-wai's very own 2046. In that time she made a brief appearance on the big screen in 2002 in Hong Kong's Mou han fou wut. And with Corey Yuen he participated in the design of the action scenes of the first installment of the X-Men.
Until he saw the romantic comedy Crazy Rich Asians (2018) and got the bug again. He spoke with his agent and it didn't take long for him to get the intrepid script by the Daniels, who signed him to play the husband of Michelle Yeoh -in the end star of Crazy Rich Asians- in Everything at the same time everywhere thanks to his skill with the Martial Arts. In it he gives life to Waymond Wang, the husband of a Chinese immigrant in the United States who is forced to save the world after an interdimensional rupture. During the awards season, his name has been mentioned at the Golden Globes, the Critics Choice, the Spirit and the Screen Actors Guild, among others.
The only one who overshadowed him was Keoghan at the Bafta. "As I got older, I began to wonder if that was it. If that was just luck. For so many years, I was afraid that I had nothing more to offer. No matter what I did, I would never surpass what I achieved as a child. Fortunately, more than 30 years later, two guys thought of me. They remembered that kid. And they gave me the chance to try again." With these words, the actor moved the staff at the last Golden Globes ceremony.
A month earlier, at the beginning of December, before finding out about his Oscar nomination, he confessed to the AP agency: "I never thought this day would come. And I've been waiting for it for decades. When you have a dream that you don't achieve, you end up burying him. That was my case, and in the end it has come true. That's why I cry a lot."
Now his luck has changed and there is no going back. Whether she wins the Oscar or not, she has already signed on for the new season of Loki and will accompany Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown in The Electric State, an adventure film directed by the Russo brothers. "2022 is the year that I will always remember as one of the happiest of my life," he assured. Without a doubt, the year of his professional resurrection.
