There were a number of guaranteed wins this Oscar Sunday, but perhaps none as anticipated as the Supporting Actor category. In a surprise to no one, Ke Huy Quan capped off an incredible award season winning his first Academy Award for his performance in The Daniels’ “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” In so doing, he becomes just the second actor of Asian descent to win this category after Haing S. Ngor won in 1985 for “The Killing Fields.”
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The 51-year-old beat out a competitive field for the honor including “The Banshees of Iniserin” stars Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan, “Causeway’s” Brian Tyree Henry and “The Fablemans'” Judd Hirsch.
Born in what was then known as South Vietnam, Quan immigrated to the United States with his family in 1979 when he was just 8 years old. Four years later, he was starring alongside Harrison Ford in Steven Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” He followed that up with a role in Richard Donner’s “Goonies” in 1985 and a role on the sitcom “Head of the Class” in 1990. As he grew older, acting opportunities became scarce. Quan decided to quit acting and went on to earn a film degree from the University of Southern California. It was the success of “Crazy Rich Asians” in 2018 decades later that inspired him to try acting once more. Landing the role of Waymond Wang in “Everything Everywhere” changed everything.
Quan has won a treasure trove of accolades for his performance in the A24 wonder including the SAG Award for Supporting Actor, the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor, the Gotham Award for Supporting Performance as well as Best Supporting Actor from the Los Angeles Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Society of Film Critics and numerous other critics groups.
Following his Oscar win, Quan will next be seen in the second season of the Disney+ series “Loki” sometime this summer.
