Indiana Jones and Goonies star's triumphant return to the screen

Former child star Ke Huy Quan was a big part of many kids' childhoods, appearing in seminal 1980s films Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Goonies.

Ke got his break in the acting industry when he was hand-picked by Steven Spielberg to play Short Round, a baseball cap wearing, wise-cracking taxi-driver who quickly becomes Indy's sidekick in the Indiana Jones sequel.

"Never in my wildest imagination did I think I would end up being an actor," he told People earlier this year.

"But I fell in love with it. That movie changed my life and my entire family's life."

Despite feeling slightly intimidated at first, Ke says he learned a lot on set.

"They [Spielberg and lead actor Harrison Ford] were so kind, and humble, and down to earth," he says. "Just loving people, human beings, that treated each other with nothing but kindness.

"I have such fond memories of working on it. We spent three weeks in Sri Lanka. We'd hang out by the pool. Harrison taught me how to swim."

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However, it wasn't until the film's world premiere that Ke realised the magnitude of what he was involved in.

"I fell in love with the movie while we were shooting it, but watching Harrison, Kate Capshaw and I up there on the screen with that amazing John Williams score and over a thousand people cheering and clapping at every scene?

"That moment, I was hooked to this wonderful and fantastical world of moviemaking. I fell in love with acting," he reveals.

The success of Indiana Jones was quickly followed with his role as tech genius Richard "Data" Wong in Spielberg kids classic The Goonies.

"I walked into Steven's office, and he said: 'Ke, I got you your next movie.' It's called The Goonies and it's about seven kids who go on an adventure. You will play Data, who is kind of like James Bond with all these amazing gadgets, but they never work unless your life depends on it,'" Ke told Yahoo Entertainment earlier this year.

"Sure enough, a few months later, I was on a set with six other kids seeing a full-sized pirate ship in front of us."

In the years since, Ke has stayed in touch with his co-stars from the movie, including Sean Astin and Corey Feldman.

"I got some great friendships out of that movie, including Jeff Cohen, aka Chunk.

"He's my entertainment lawyer and we're great friends, as I am with Sean and Corey.

"We're Goonies for life," he says.

The success of Indiana Jones and The Goonies the following year made Ke believe he had an amazing career ahead of him.

Instead, he only managed to secure a couple of small roles before the offers fizzled out.

"The irony is that I didn't pursue acting when I was a little kid. But as I got older, in my late teens and early 20s, I really took it seriously. That’s what I wanted to do, what I wanted my profession to be," Ke told GQ magazine.

"But when I started pursuing it, there were just not a lot of opportunities for me. It was extremely difficult for an Asian actor at that time.

"In Hollywood, very, very few child actors make smooth and successful transitions into adult acting," he added.

"It was tough," he says. I was waiting for the phone to ring, and it rarely did."

Instead, he stepped away from the career he loved and retrained as a stunt coordinator.

Then the success of the 2018 movie Crazy Rich Asians changed all that for Ke.

"I was happy working behind the camera but I had serious FOMO," he says about how he felt after seeing the film. I wanted to be up there with my fellow Asian actors!"

So he went back to auditions and quickly landed a role opposite ground-breaking Asian actress and Crazy Rich Asian star Michelle Yeoh in the comedy-drama Everything Everywhere All at Once.

"When I read the script I thought it was written for me because they are me.

"I understood every single one of them," he told People of his character Waymond Wang, a loving husband who hops through multiple universes trying to help his wife (Yeoh) save the world.

"I don't think I could have played Waymond had you given me the role 10, 15 years ago," he added. "Looking back upon my life, all the highs and lows, I reached deep within me to pour my entire life into these three different characters."

Not everything went smoothly on set though.

He struggled to master a difficult Taekwondo sequence that required one take, despite training for four weeks with the film's stunt coordinator.

"I hear 'action' and I swing around and it was a complete disaster," he admitted to Coming Soon.

"It was a total failure on take one. I look over to the Daniels [directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert] and I see them lowering their head. It's like, 'Oh my God, this is not happening.' They were so disappointed, and I was really nervous,"

Luckily for Ke, he aced the next take.

He's already been recognised for the role too, winning Best Supporting Actor at the Hollywood Critics Association Midseason Film Awards, and being nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Saturn Awards, both of which make him a serious contender for the same award at next year's Oscars.

In the meantime he's already back in front of the cameras, filming the second season of the Marvel TV series Loki and feeling right at home.

"I remember stepping in front of the camera again for the first time, there was a sense of familiarity and then all those memories that I had as a kid, all those fond memories I had came rushing back in, and I remember feeling that this is where I belong, this is where I want to be," he told Coming Soon. "I was really happy."

It couldn't be happening to a nicer guy either – there's nothing better than seeing the beloved former child star so happy.

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