Ke Huy Quan reveals how his first movie changed his life financially
Ke Huy Quan’s first movie role came with an unexpected twist.
Quan starred in the 1984’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as a Short Round who was a young Chinese orphan boy. Moreover, Steven Spielberg served as director while George Lucas was executive producer as well as story creator of the movie.
Speaking with People Magazine, the actor looked back at the pair’s notable success at the time, stating, “Back then, in the late ‘70s and the early ‘80s, everything George Lucas and Steven Spielberg touched turned to gold.”
He went on to say, “I mean, they were responsible for the term blockbuster.”
“Every movie that they made up until that point made history, became the biggest movie of all time, going from Jaws to Star Wars and then to E.T,” the Oscar winning actor remarked.
It is worth noting here that Quan came along with his family to Hongkong from Vietnam, in 1978, at the age of 7, and eventually moved to Los Angeles after spending a few years in a refugee camp.
As Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was Quan’s first-ever film project when he was nearly 12-years-old, the actor recalled, circumstances surrounding the film’s contract, saying, “I remember when we were presented with the contract [for Temple of Doom], my mom took the contract to probably the only attorney in Chinatown Los Angeles at that time.”
Adding, “And I don’t think he knew much about the entertainment industry. I think he specializes in immigration.”
He revealed that the lawyer “looked at it briefly,” and said that it was ok to go.
“Little did we know there was a paragraph in there that would change our lives when the movie came out. And that generous gesture that [Lucas and Spielberg] gave me was life-changing for our family at that time,” he further added.
Giving details about the contract, he said, “learned later that the contract we’d signed almost two years earlier included a small profit-sharing component none of us had known about, a quiet gesture from Steven and George that we hadn’t understood. Back then, almost no actors got a piece of a movie’s profits. Even today, only the biggest stars do.”
Quan also told the outlet that he and his family had never “seen that much money in their entire life,” Quan continued, “We didn’t have anything. My parents were heavily in debt.”
“We didn’t even have a car… It was a mile away from our local bank, and I opened my first savings and checking account with my name on it,” the actor, now 55, recalled further.
