Quan Kế Huy was born in 1970^[6] or 1971,^[7] in Saigon, South Vietnam,^[7] into a family of Chinese descent, with eight siblings.^[9] Three years after the end of the Vietnam war in 1975, Quan and his family fled from Vietnam.^[10] He, along with his father and five siblings, went to Hong Kong, while Quan's mother and three other siblings went to Malaysia.^[11] After staying at a refugee camp in Hong Kong, Quan's entire family was admitted to the United States as part of the Refugee Admissions Program in 1979.^[12] In the U.S., Quan grew up in California, where he attended the Mount Gleason Junior High School in Sunland-Tujunga, Los Angeles and Alhambra High School in Alhambra.^[13]

Quan became a child actor at age 13, starring as Harrison Ford's 12-year-old sidekick Short Round in the Steven Spielberg film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1984.^[14] The casting director auditioned a number of children at Castelar Elementary School, including Quan's younger brother.^[15] He described the role as "one of the happiest times of my life".^[12] For his performance, he was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor.^[16] In 1985, Quan co-starred in The Goonies as a member of the eponymous group of children, the inventor Richard "Data" Wang. He played a pickpocket orphan in the 1986 Taiwanese movie It Takes a Thief. In 1987, he appeared in the Japanese movie Passengers (Passenjā Sugisarishi Hibi [ja]) with the Japanese idol singer Honda Minako. He played Sam on the short-lived TV series Together We Stand (1986–1987) and played Jasper Kwong in the sitcom Head of the Class from 1990 to 1991. In 1991, he starred in the movie Breathing Fire, and had a small role in Encino Man the following year. He played the starring role in the 1993 Mandarin-language Taiwan TV show Eunuch & Carpenter, which ran for forty episodes.^[17][1] He also starred in the 1996 Hong Kong-Vietnam co-production Red Pirate.

He studied Taekwondo under Philip Tan on the set of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and later trained under Tao-liang Tan.^[18]

As an adult, Quan found it difficult to find acting work in the United States. He eventually quit acting and enrolled in the film program at University of Southern California.^[19][20] During his time there, he edited a comedy horror short film titled Voodoo alongside his friend and fellow student Gregg Bishop, who directed the film.^[20] Voodoo won the Audience Award at the 2000 Slamdance Film Festival, and continues to be shown to USC students to this day.^[21] After graduating from USC, Quan was asked by Corey Yuen to go to Toronto, Ontario, to help choreograph fighting sequences in X-Men (2000).^[19][15] For the next decade, he worked behind the scenes on various productions in Asia and the United States.^[15] He again helped Yuen as a stunt choreographer for The One (2001).^[22] Quan worked as assistant director on Wong Kar-wai's 2046 (2004).^[15]

Quan was inspired to return to acting following the success of Crazy Rich Asians in 2018.^[23] In 2019, he was cast in a supporting role in the Netflix film Finding ʻOhana, released in 2021.^[24] Quan approached director Jude Weng after overhearing her describing the film as The Goonies meets Indiana Jones, in both of which Quan had appeared.^[20] That same year, the filmmaking duo Daniels began casting for their film Everything Everywhere All at Once. They struggled to cast an actor in the role of Waymond Wang, a character who would appear in three different incarnations of the film. Co-director Daniel Kwan stumbled upon Quan on Twitter. Two weeks after getting a talent agent, Quan received a call to audition for the film.^[20] In January 2020, Quan was announced as a cast member of Everything Everywhere All at Once.^[25] The film was released in March 2022 to overwhelming acclaim, becoming the most-awarded film of all time,^[26] with Quan's performance receiving near unanimous praise and media attention, eventually leading to him winning a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award and an Academy Award for his role. The Screen Actors Guild Award win made him the first Asian man to win any individual category at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, with his win of the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role. He was the first Vietnamese-American actor to be nominated in that category.^{[27][28][29][30]} Quan is one of two actors of Asian descent to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, the other being Haing S. Ngor in 1985,^[31] and is the first Vietnamese-born actor to win an Academy Award.^[32]

In February 2022, it was announced that he had joined the cast of the TV adaptation of American Born Chinese for Disney+, which was subsequently released in May 2023.^[33][34] In September 2022, Quan was announced to have joined the cast for the second season of the Marvel Cinematic Universe series Loki for Disney+, which premiered on October 6, 2023. For his performance he received a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series nomination.^[35][36] In June 2023, it was announced that he had been invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as an actor.^[37] He had a voice role in Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024).^[38] Quan has later then starred in a leading role in Love Hurts (2025), and starred in The Electric State, along side Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt. He will be a voice in Zootopia 2 as a new character, Gary the Snake.

Quan is of Han Chinese ancestry from the Hoa ethnic minority group of Vietnam. He speaks English, Cantonese, and Mandarin.^[39] Quan is married to Echo Quan,^[40] who served as the on-set translator for Everything Everywhere All at Once,^[41] and resides in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles.^[20][19] Quan holds a second-degree black belt in taekwondo; he started taking classes after learning from a taekwondo instructor for his role in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.^[20] He remains close friends with his Goonies co-star Jeff Cohen, who is also Quan's entertainment lawyer and helped Quan negotiate his contract to star in Everything Everywhere All at Once.^[15]

In 2023, Quan won a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award, for Best Supporting Actor, for his role in Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022).^[47][48] He was the first Asian man to win any individual category at the Screen Actors Guild Awards for the same role, as well as the first Vietnamese-American actor to be nominated in the supporting category.

In 2023, Quan was an honoree of the Carnegie Corporation of New York's Great Immigrant Award.^[49]

• Asian Americans in arts and entertainment
• List of Academy Award winners and nominees of Asian descent