Harrison Ford and Ke Huy Quan share emotional hug at Oscars as they reunite years after 'Indiana Jones'
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Last Sunday night, March 12, was a quite special one for the Vietnam-born actor Ke Huy Quan, who not only won the Best Supporting Actor award for ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ but also met his ‘Indiana Jones’ co-star Harrison Ford after a long time. The two actors reportedly emotionally embraced each other after coming face to face on stage.
The Daily Mail reported that Ford was on stage to honor ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ with the Best Picture award and after seeing the 51-year-old actor, he hugged him to celebrate his victory. Quan had worked with the 80-year-old star as a child actor in ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’. But his acting career did not take off after he worked in ‘The Goonies’ in 1985.
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‘This is the American dream’
Quan then went on to work as a stunt coordinator and assistant director. However, he decided to return to acting after witnessing the success of ‘Crazy Rich Asians’. He played the role of Waymond Wang in ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ which got him his first acting Oscar.
After receiving the award, Quan said, “My mom is 88 years old and watching from home – Ma, I just won an Oscar! My journey started on a boat. I spent a year in a refugee camp. And somehow, I ended up here on Hollywood’s biggest stage.”
He continued, “They say stories like this only happen in the movies. I cannot believe it’s happening to me. This — this is the American dream! Dreams are something you have to believe in. I almost gave up on mine. To all of you out there, please keep your dream alive.”
‘It got really tough’
Quan also spoke with Deadline backstage and shared, “You know, when I started as a kid, it was my birth name Ke Huy Quan. And then I remember, when it got really tough, my manager told me, ‘Maybe it would be easier if you were to have an American-sounding name.’ And I was so desperate for a job that I would do anything. And it’s insane that I, at one point, would try a different name, not the name that was given to me, but it can only show you how desperate I was to try to make things different.”
He then went on to share that after making the decision to come back to acting, he was determined to use his birth name. Quan noted, “The very first thing that I wanted to do was to go back to my birth-given name. Tonight to see Ariana [DeBose] open that envelope and say, ‘Ke Huy Quan,’ that was a really, really special moment for me.”
“And then immediately I was so emotional, but the first image that I had in my mind was my mom — who is the reason why I am in America, who is the reason why I have a better life, I have all these opportunities. Like I said in my acceptance speech, she sacrificed so much. She had a great life where we came from, and she gave all that up so that all her children — there are nine of us — and every single one of them are so grateful to my parents,” he added.
‘He's a great guy’
This comes as earlier Ford expressed his happiness over Quan’s nomination. He told Entertainment Today, “I'm so happy for him. He's a great guy. He's a wonderful actor. He was when he was a little kid, and he still is. I'm glad. I'm very happy for him.”
Also, while speaking with Uproxx in December last year, ‘The Call of the Wild’ star mentioned Quan and added, “He is really terrific in his movie. And I’m so glad to see him … and what he has become. I’m so happy for him. He’s such a happy guy, too.”