KeHuyQuan’s career is a testament to perseverance, reinvention and breaking barriers — but his journey has been anything but conventional, from his early days as a beloved child actor in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and “The Goonies” to stepping away from Hollywood for decades. His triumphant return in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” not only earned him an Oscar but also reignited his career in ways he never imagined.(Watch the video interview above.)
Now, in “Love Hurts,” Quan takes on his first leading role as Marvin Gable, a seemingly mild-mannered real estate agent who is far more dangerous than he appears. But despite being offered the part, Quan initially struggled to see himself as the protagonist.
“When ‘Love Hurts’ was offered to me in the very beginning, and I remember reading the script, and I loved it, but I just couldn’t see myself as Marvin Gable, who is the No. 1 on the call sheet,” Quan told me. “I’ve been so conditioned to think that an action hero looks like [Arnold] Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone. But not like me.”
That self-doubt, however, was short-lived. A conversation with Steven Spielberg— his longtime mentor and the director who first cast him as the iconic Short Round in the Indiana Jones franchise — changed everything.
“I told [Steven] about this … and he said, ‘It sounds great, Ke. You should do this.’ And then I just realized, wait, how come he can see me as a leading man, but I can’t?” he said.
For decades, Hollywood’s action heroes fit a singular mold — physically imposing, effortlessly cool and seemingly invincible. But “Love Hurts” presents a different kind of hero, one that feels refreshingly unexpected.
“A lot of action movies for the past two decades, they always look so tough and cool. … ’I understand how he can beat up 40 guys, because he looks like it,’” Quan explained. “There’s something really refreshing when you see a face like myself who doesn’t look lethal at all … and when you mess with him, you realize, ‘Oh, wow, he’s really badass.’”
That same determination has defined Quan’s career. His Oscar-winning performance in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” may have seemed like a natural success, but it was the result of decades spent on the sidelines, wondering if Hollywood would ever make space for actors who looked like him.
Through it all, one thing kept him going: the desire to honor his parents’ sacrifices. Before they fled Vietnam as refugees, his parents were successful businesspeople, forced to leave everything behind in search of a better future for their children. That sacrifice weighed heavily on Quan. “I didn’t want to make them feel that the sacrifice that they gave me went to waste,” he told me. “That was on my mind all these years. It was so important to me to make them proud.”
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It’s a sentiment Quan said that many immigrants and children of immigrants can relate to — the pressure to succeed, the struggle to fit in and the desire to prove that their family’s sacrifices were worth it. “A lot of immigrants go through this,” Quan said. “You want acceptance, and you try to be like everybody else. And I hope that they understand that there is beauty in being different.”
Now, as both an Oscar winner and an action star, Quan is redefining who gets to lead on-screen. His success isn’t just a personal victory — it’s a shift in an industry that has long overlooked actors like him. And in breaking those barriers, he’s ensuring that the next generation won’t have to fight as hard to be seen.