In his new memoir, “Never Say Die,” Ke Huy Quan shares his feelings about receiving his first $100,000 check for the remainder of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” as a child actor.
Since Quan was only 12 years old when he took on the role of Short Round in the 1984 film (his first major role as an actor), he didn’t realize that he would receive a residual salary in addition to his base salary.
“One afternoon, I walked into the kitchen and found my parents standing together at the table,” Quan wrote in his memoir for Entertainment Weekly. “Mom was holding an envelope with my name on it. Dad was holding the documents inside.”
He continued, “They were all smiling, a smile that was a mixture of surprise and disbelief. They handed everything to me. It was a check from Lucasfilm. It was close to $100,000, an amount that meant nothing to me.”
“At that time, few actors got a share of the movie’s profits,” Quan continued. “Even today, only the biggest stars would do that. It was unheard of for a kid like me, making his first movie, to be involved in something like this. And Temple of Doom wasn’t some little movie that no one was going to see. It was the sequel to a hit movie, a movie that everyone knew was going to make a lot of money. That made their gesture even more generous.”
Quan noted, “This small part changed my family’s life.”
As a child, Quan also played Data in Richard Donner’s 1985 film “The Goonies.” Decades later, he returned to the spotlight in 2023, winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Everything Happens at the Same Time. His memoir, released on Tuesday, details his early life escaping Vietnam with his father, his time in a refugee camp, life as a child star and his successful return to the screen.