Ke Huy Quan On Blowing Up, Kicking Ass, And Turning Leading Man

Ke Huy Quan is in the eye of the storm. He’s been here before, of course. When he was barely a teenager, he was a global icon — we all grew up gasping at his adventures, from battling Thuggees in a cave system lousy with voodoo in Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom, to being menaced by Robert Davi and Joey Pants in The Goonies. Those blockbusters put him on the map. But after decades of quiet, during which a retired-from-acting Quan suspected that his Hollywood journey had stopped for good, that storm is whirling again, fiercer than ever.

As an adult actor, he’s won an Oscar for his comeback role(s) as Waymond in mind-melting multiverse romance Everything Everywhere All At Once. He’s met and taken photos with seemingly every celebrity in Hollywood, including, recently, both Billy Crystal and Mickey Mouse simultaneously. He’s joined the MCU with Loki, played a pangolin in Kung Fu Panda 4. Good things keep happening to him.

And it seems like the whole world is cheering him on. When Empire sits down with the immensely likeable star at a seafood restaurant in Calabasas, Los Angeles, for a lunch of oysters and octopus (it’s hard not to think of the moment at the end of The Goonies where Quan’s Data says, “The octopus was really scary!”, despite the scene with the beast having been left on the cutting-room floor), he’s preparing to fly to Taiwan to present at the Golden Horse Awards, Asia’s equivalent of the Oscars. Finally, he’s accepted everywhere, all at once. And, now in his fifties, he wants to do everything, preparing to fulfil some long-harboured dreams.

The first: to star in a high-octane Hollywood action flick. The forthcoming Love Hurts, his first leading role in America, is the culmination of decades of action training by Quan. Directed by John Wick stunt-maestro Jonathan Eusebio, it has been an experience that, yes, hurt — but was worth every bruise. Quan is making up for lost time, and a little pain isn’t going to slow him down.

EMPIRE: It’s almost two years on from your Oscar win. Does it feel like life has totally changed?

Ke Huy Quan: On a personal level, nothing’s changed. I still live in the same house. I still drive the same car. I still go to the same places. I don’t have an assistant. My wife, Echo, helps me. But on a professional level, oh, it’s night and day. I spent so many years desperately trying to persuade filmmakers that I’m right for a role: “Please put me in this movie.” But now, filmmakers are coming to me. They’ll say, “We have this script. We think you’re perfect for this.” That’s how Love Hurts started.

Incredibly, given you’ve been acting since you were 12, this is your first leading-man role in a Hollywood movie.

I actually passed [on Love Hurts] a couple of times, because when I read it, I thought, “Wait, this is not for me. Why are you asking me?” I was so confused. I thought it was written for somebody like Jason Statham, because I’ve been conditioned to think that when you have an action star, he needs to look like The Rock or Stallone or Schwarzenegger. I didn’t think anybody that looks like me could star in this role. Luckily, they didn’t give up on me. They came back for a third time. I was at an event with Steven Spielberg and he was asking me, “Ke, how are you doing?” I said, “Steven, I’m not doing so well.” Because of all the love and support that I had gotten during that whole award season, I was so worried that whatever I was going to do next, I would disappoint. So I was having trouble picking my next project. Steven was very generous. He said, “Ke, let’s have lunch.” And I told him about this project and kind of pitched it to him. He said, “Ke, it’s great. Do it.” I went in and they had these really elaborate slides with me as the main character. That’s when I started to see it a different way. “Oh, they’re trying to create a different kind of action hero. Not the type that we’ve seen for decades, but something new.”

Talking of Spielberg, your first-ever movie — and your first taste of action — was Temple Of Doom.

It was my first exposure to action. For the big finale (in which Quan’s Short Round tussles with a voodoo-doll-tormenting child), I was trained for a couple of days with a taekwondo instructor. I still remember his name — Philip Tan. That was my first time doing it on camera, and I loved it.

You were also taught to swim by Harrison Ford. Was he a patient teacher?

He’s a great teacher. And to this day I know how to swim because of him. I mean, I’m not as good as him. (Laughs) He has great forms, but I can only do a couple of styles.

You then got yourself a black belt.

After Indiana Jones, I came back to LA, and my brother and I immediately went and studied. We would go to taekwondo classes Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And then on Tuesday and Thursday, we would watch Hong Kong movies. I even went and bought a sandbag and put it in my backyard: we would go to the television and rewind the sequences that we loved, watch them again and then go out and try to do those moves. I really wanted to go and make action movies. I fantasised about working with Jackie Chan or Sammo Hung and then also in Hollywood. Unfortunately, nobody hired me. And I made two movies that I really love, but they were low-budget, independent action movies that nobody really saw.

Those are the Chinese films Breathing Fire (1991) and Red Pirate (1997). In the latter, you play the hero, an ass-kicking cop who at one point slides down a bannister with two guns. It feels like a hybrid of Jackie Chan and John Woo.

Oh yes, that slide was Chow Yun-Fat in A Better Tomorrow. Classic! With Red Pirate, that director (Chen Chi-Hwa) was Jackie Chan’s director. He collaborated with Jackie Chan on many movies. So I was super-excited and I poured everything I knew into that movie. I did all the fights myself, all the falling, all the twirling around, jumping. I had bruises every day, but I didn’t mind. I was really happy because I was living my dream.

"I don't know how to do fight scenes any other way, except to go full power."

Yet it was shortly after that movie that you walked away from acting.

That was actually the last movie I ever did before stepping away. I was disappointed, because I had a great time and worked really hard, but it didn’t do anything. Nobody really talked about it. I did a few movies in Asia, and a 40-episode TV series, but they never became big hits. It was a tough period, because when I went back to Asia [after Indiana Jones and The Goonies], I was treated like a big movie star. You know, there would be fans waiting for me at the hotel I was staying in, and at the studio where we were working. But that never turned into a meaningful career. So when that dried up, I came back [to America]... and then it was even worse!

You’ve spoken about making the decision to quit acting after auditioning for a role with only two lines, and then not getting it.

That was after I finished Red Pirate, where I was the star. I came back to Hollywood and my agent said, “Well, we don’t have much, but we want to keep you working. There’s this role that only has two lines. It’s a Vietcong role. You want to go try out for it?” And when I couldn’t even get that, that was one of the lowest points of my life.

You were really going through it. But then you picked yourself up and applied to USC film school. Did you have a grand plan of where it would lead to?

No, not yet, because I was really lost at that time. And stepping away was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. I was just like, “Let me learn as much as I can about the movie business.” Every department — producing, script-writing, cinematography, editing, sound — I tried to learn something about it. So hopefully, when I came out, I would have a career behind the camera.

You made a comedy-horror short called Voodoo, which is still shown to students there.

I edited and did the cinematography for that. I’m very proud of it. It was one of those classes where you partner up with a classmate. We shot it on film, 8mm, and we would splice the film on this tiny machine. And I would have all these different takes taped to the wall. I was in a good place, because I was surrounded by people that were just as passionate about movies as I am.

Funnily enough, like Temple Of Doom, it has a voodoo-doll theme.

That wasn’t my idea. It was my partner [Gregg Bishop] who directed the movie. But we all grew up watching the same movies, and he was heavily influenced by Spielberg and the Indiana Jones films.

Then everything started spinning in a whole new direction. You started working on action sequences from behind the camera.

I had known [legendary action choreographer and director] Corey Yuen many years prior to that. He’s very good friends with my cousin up in Seattle, so every time I went to Seattle I would see him, and he would ask, “Ke, what have you been up to?” When he found out that I had graduated, it was just perfect timing. He calls and says, “I’m in Toronto. Why don’t you fly up?” I literally had no clue what was going on. I landed and a driver took me to set. I walked on set and said, “What movie is this?” And then I found out that it was [2000’s] X-Men.

You were just thrown into it like that?

I was thrown into it. I had zero experience of action choreography. Corey took me under his wing and taught me. And because of my taekwondo background, I was tasked with training Hugh Jackman all the moves for the big finale. It was a great fight. After we designed it, me and another action choreographer would walk out the fight in front of the entire cast and crew. Over 100 people. And a young man named Kevin Feige was off to the side talking to the producer, saying, “That guy over there is Short Round from Indiana Jones!” (Laughs) He couldn’t believe it. And that was my first job, right out of college.

You went on to work with Wong Kar Wai on films like 2046. With all that experience behind the camera, did you ever get the itch to direct yourself?

Oh yes. I thought about it, for sure. But you know, Spielberg always says, “Listen to your intuition. It never shouts, it whispers.” And something was telling me that that’s not what I should be doing at that time.

Now you’re where you’re at, is that itch coming back?

Right now, my main focus is to be a part of as many interesting projects as I can as an actor.I want to play characters that I didn’t get the opportunity to do when I was younger. Directing is something that I think is a little bit further down the line, because it’s very time-consuming. And there are so many different characters I want to play. So many wonderful filmmakers I want to work with.

Let’s talk about some of your upcoming roles. Everything Everywhere... saw you bust some martial-arts moves, including with a weaponised fanny-pack. But Marvin Gable in Love Hurts, estate agent and secret one-man army, is on another level.

They tailored [that role] to me, to everything that I know. We have an incredible action team. And [producer] David Leitch and his company, 87North, are very good with this genre. Going into this movie, I was mentally prepared, and I was physically ready, because I trained with them for three months. And it was really trying to find out, while we were training, what I can still do. Mentally, I think I can do everything, but a lot of those moves I haven’t done in decades. One of the things I’m very proud of is I did all the fights myself. There were stunt doubles for the wire rigs where I get thrown across the room. But all the punches, all the kicks, I threw myself. Every day, I would soak in a salt bath for half an hour. It was a lot of fun, but it was physically so demanding that halfway through the shoot, I told my wife, “I don’t think I can do this again.” Then, when the trailer came out and I saw how great it is, I told her, “I can’t wait to do this again.” (Laughs)

"I want to go out of my comfort zone and play a diabolical, really bad guy."

Is there one show-stopping sequence you were especially excited about, going in?

There are five big action sequences, each one very different, and I was very involved. One of the fights I’m very proud of is the big finale, the epic fight between Daniel Wu and I. We really went at it. That’s the way I know. I don’t know how to do fight scenes any other way, except to go full power.

Is it surreal to suddenly be the main selling point for the film, after all this time?

It’s incredible. I never thought I would one day see a trailer with the Universal Studios logo before it, and then the movie be advertised with my name. Honestly, everything that has happened in the last two years, I never thought would happen. It feels great. But also, stepping into this movie, I knew what being number one meant, because I’ve seen it. I’ve seen how Tom Hiddleston does it [on Loki, which co-stars Quan]. I’ve seen how Harrison Ford does it. You really set the tone. Everybody looks to you. I went in thinking, “Okay, now I’m in this position, how am I going to treat my cast and crew?” And I hope they’re happy.

Then there’s The Electric State, in which you play some manner of genius scientist.

I play Dr Amherst. A character that Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt traverse America to look for. They need to find this doctor to understand what’s going on.

With that and Loki’s Ouroboros, you’re becoming Hollywood’s go-to guy for dispensing information.

Yeah, isn’t that something? (Laughs) I spent my entire life searching for info, and now people are coming to me for info. [The Electric State] was a very different experience because there were a lot of mocap actors. We would rehearse with the mocap actors, shoot a couple of takes with them, then they would step aside and now we’re just acting as if to nothing. It was a real first. Loki, everything was practical — except the Temporal Loom, which we had a giant poster of so we knew what we were looking at.

And then there’s Fairytale In New York, to be directed by Sisu’s Jalmari Helander, which hasn’t started shooting yet.

I was pitched Fairytale before I won the Oscar. It’s a Christmas movie, it’s a badass action movie, and I fell in love with the pitch right away, Because I’ve always wanted my own Christmas movie, but an ass-kicking Christmas movie, kind of like Die Hard. We recently got the second draft, and I can tell you it is awesome. I’m a cab driver on Christmas Eve, something happens, and it’s really like a man-on-a-mission-type movie. It’s non-stop action. Once it takes off, it’s a big rollercoaster ride.

So you’re finally getting the action movies you always wanted.

Isn’t that ironic? Like, nobody wanted to hire me to be in an action movie when I was in my twenties, when I was in the best shape of my life!

Do you think you have a lot of years of action in you still?

That is what I hope. I don’t want to be perceived as an action star. I hope I’m perceived as an actor who does action well. So I’m going to take it one step at a time. The best part about being an actor is, you get to play a variety of different characters. I love Ouroboros because he’s so different than Waymond, and Waymond is so different than Marvin Gable.

Finally, Tom Hiddleston wrote a tribute to you when you were picked as one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2023. He said, “His positivity is the most profound kind of spiritual strength.” That positivity is in the DNA of a lot of your characters, too. But would you be up for going against type and playing a bad guy?

I would love to play a bad guy. Like a Bond villain. Or the kind of thing Hugh Grant does in Heretic. I want to go out of my comfort zone and just play this diabolical, really bad guy. (Laughs) That would be a lot of fun.

Originally published in the March 2025 issue of Empire. Ke Huy Quan was shot exclusively for Empire in Los Angeles in November 2024, by Art Streiber. Love Hurts is in UK cinemas from 7 February.