## The Reunion With His Own Past
One of the more quietly remarkable aspects of Ke Huy Quan’s awards season was the way it functioned as a reunion with multiple figures from his past.
Steven Spielberg, who cast him at twelve, was present at the Golden Globes when Quan won. They hugged. Spielberg blew him a kiss from the crowd when Quan thanked him in his speech. The image of the director and his childhood discovery, together on a Hollywood stage forty years after the casting call that had started it all, was widely circulated and widely understood as carrying weight that went beyond the individual relationship.
Jeff Cohen — Chunk, the former *Goonies* kid who had become Quan’s lawyer — was in Quan’s circle throughout the awards season and was named in the Oscar speech. Their reunion had begun earlier, when Cohen negotiated the *Everything Everywhere All at Once* contract, and it continued through the most public stage of Quan’s comeback.
Michelle Yeoh, who shared the *Everything Everywhere All at Once* stage with him and who won her own Oscar at the same ceremony, has continued to work with him in *American Born Chinese*. Their collaboration has the quality of a professional partnership that has found its footing quickly and intends to continue.
The Daniels, who had found him in a Twitter GIF and asked him to come back, were present throughout the awards season as the film’s directors and co-writers, and their statements about Quan — about what they saw in him, about their role in helping bring him back to the industry — have been generous and specific.