Ke Huy Quan reveals Steven Spielberg's 'unheard of' gesture on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom that 'changed my family's life'

Ke Huy Quan revealed that his family's fortunes were reversed by an 'unheard of' act of generosity from Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.

He was born in Saigon in 1970 to a Han Chinese family who fled Vietnam when he was a child and spent time in a Hong Kong refugee camp before arriving in America.

They were living in Los Angeles' Chinatown, in debt and without a car, when they found themselves at the business end of Spielberg and Lucas' largesse.

At the age of 13, Quan rocketed to child stardom as the precocious Short Round in Spielberg's 1984 adventure movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Spielberg and his co-producer Lucas slipped a 'profit-sharing' deal into the actor's contract that proved 'life changing for our family at that time,' Quan told People.

'Back then, almost no actors got a piece of a movie’s profits. Even today, only the biggest stars do,' the 55-year-old observed in his new memoir Never Say Die.

Ke Huy Quan revealed that his family's fortunes were reversed by an 'unheard of' act of generosity from Steven Spielberg and George Lucas; Quan and Spielberg pictured in 2023

Quan was 13 years old when he rocketed to child stardom as Short Round in Spielberg's 1984 movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, in which he is pictured with Harrison Ford

One year after his rise to fame in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Quan starred in the classic The Goonies, another picture produced by Spielberg.

Although his public profile declined in the intervening decades, he achieved a thunderous comeback with the 2022 film Everything Everywhere All At Once, which landed him an Oscar for best supporting actor.

The movie's leading lady Michelle Yeoh became the first openly Asian best actress winner, in that English film star Merle Oberon was concealing her partial Sinhalese heritage when she earned the award for her turn in the 1935 World War I drama The Dark Angel.

While promoting Never Say Die, which was published last Tuesday, Quan reflected on his first taste of stratospheric success in the Indiana Jones franchise.

'Back then, in the late ‘70s and the early ‘80s, everything George Lucas and Steven Spielberg touched turned to gold,' he noted.

'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 ET,' Quan added.

When he was offered the Indiana Jones film, his mother 'took the contract to probably the only attorney in Chinatown Los Angeles at that time. And I don’t think he knew much about the entertainment industry. I think he specializes in immigration.'

According to Quan, the lawyer only 'briefly' examined the paperwork before giving his approval, offering no hint of the boon hidden in its contents.

Quan is pictured in a publicity still for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom with Ford and Amy Irving, who shortly thereafter became Spielberg's first wife

In 1985, Quan (right) starred with (from left) Jeff Cohen, Sean Astin and Corey Feldman in The Goonies, which was also produced by Spielberg

Although his public profile declined in the intervening decades, he achieved a thunderous comeback with the 2022 film Everything Everywhere All At Once, which won him an Oscar

'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,' said Quan.

He shared in his book that he was bowled over by the staggering $100,000 he received as his first royalty check from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Only 'later' did the family discover '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.'

Promoting the memoir in a new interview, Quan recalled that he and his family had never 'seen that much money in their entire life,' as prior to that point they 'didn’t have anything. My parents were heavily in debt.'

Smiling, he remembered: 'We didn’t even have a car...It was a mile away to our local bank, and I opened my first savings and checking account with my name on it.'

Elsewhere in the book, Quan recounted the way Spielberg would use him to smooth the occasionally prickly demeanor of the movie's leading man Harrison Ford.

'I found out that whenever [Ford] was in a bad mood, Steven would tell someone: "Send Ke over,"' he wrote in Never Say Die.

'I had no idea any of that was happening. I just knew that whenever I walked up, Harrison softened a little or said: "Hey, kid," in that warm way he had.'