Ke Huy Quan Reveals “Life Changing” Gesture From Spielberg & Lucas When He Was A Kid

Ke Huy Quan was 12 years old when he made Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

In his new memoir, Never Say Die, excerpted in Entertainment Weekly, the Oscar-winning actor reveals that producer George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg took care of him in way he didn’t know about until after filming had concluded.

“One afternoon, I walked into the kitchen and found my parents standing together at the table,” Quan writes. “Mom was holding an envelope with my name printed across it. Dad had the papers that had been inside.

“They were both smiling, the kind of smile that comes from surprise and disbelief mixed together. They handed everything to me. It was a check from Lucasfilm. It was for almost $100,000, an amount that didn’t make any sense to me.” Quan had already been paid his fee for the project.

But the film made more than $300M worldwide, and the director and producer made sure the kid shared in that bounty.

“Back then, almost no actors got a piece of a movie’s profits. Even today, only the biggest stars do. That a kid like me, making his first film, would be included in something like that was unheard of. And Temple of Doom wasn’t some small movie no one was expected to see. It was the sequel to a massive hit, a movie everyone knew would make a lot of money. That made their gesture even more generous.”

The actor added, “That small share was life-changing for my family.”