Ke Huy Quan's Wife: Who Is Corinna 'Echo' Ke Quan?
Actor Ke Huy Quan is experiencing some kind of resurgence in Hollywood. After effectively getting shut out of roles during the past three decades, he finally got his well-deserved comeback — and with it came a deluge of awards for his stellar performance as Waymond in the highly acclaimed film "Everything Everywhere All at Once."
Back when he was a child, Quan thought his roles in "Indiana Jones" and "The Goonies" would eventually lead to a fruitful acting career, but he later learned that bagging roles as a person of color wasn't as easy as he thought. "Hollywood didn't want me. There were no roles for me, so I spent the majority of my time in my late teens and early 20s just waiting for the phone to ring, and it rarely rang," he shared with The Hollywood Reporter's "Actors Roundtable" segment. "The difficult part was to say goodbye to the dream that I always wanted, but it was just difficult to be an Asian actor at that time." Quan then decided to enroll at USC to study film and pivot to a role behind the scenes. After college, he forged a successful career assistant directing and coordinating stunts.
But, with the increased visibility of Asian actors in the industry came Quan's decision to try again. And, according to him, it's all thanks to his wife, Corrina "Echo" Quan, who gave him the courage he needed to rejoin the world that once pushed him out.
Echo Quan is also a part of the entertainment industry
Not every couple can say that award-winning director Wong Kar Wai set them up, but Ke Huy and Echo Quan can. In the actor's profile with The Guardian, it was revealed that the couple met on the set of "2046," where Quan worked as assistant director alongside the esteemed filmmaker, who then suggested that they go on a date.
It's unclear when the two married, but they have already been together for more than 20 years. And just like Ke Huy, Echo also initially had difficulty landing jobs in the entertainment industry after moving to the U.S. — until "Everything Everywhere All at Once" came along. In a tweet by the Daniels — directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert — they revealed that Echo was their on-set translator on the film, and the "secret soul" of the project. "So many people have told us how much it meant to them to hear the family speaking in multiple languages (Cantonese, Mandarin, Chinglish, and English) and we couldn't have pulled it off without her," they wrote, adding that Echo was emotional when she snagged the job. "She teared up when we hired her. But we're the lucky ones!"
Her husband also makes it a point to acknowledge her every chance he gets. In his acceptance speech at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, Ke Huy described his wife as "the most beautiful translator and Chinese dialogue coach in the world, who I get to go home with every night." Aww!
Echo Quan is Ke Huy Quan's biggest cheerleader
Every single one of Ke Huy Quan's acceptance speeches had something in common: he never fails to mention his wife, Echo Quan, who apparently gave him the strength and confidence to try acting again.
When he won the award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture at the Golden Globes, he told everyone that Echo was "the most important person in my life, the one person that has never stopped believing in me." He also did it on a much bigger stage, the 2023 Academy Awards, when he brought home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. "I owe everything to the love of my life, my wife, Echo, who, month after month, year after year, for 20 years, told me that one day, one day, my time will come," he said in his emotional speech. "Dreams are something you have to believe in. I almost gave up on mine."
It's thanks to Echo that Ke Huy finally achieved his dreams. "She told me every single day, 'Just wait,'" he told Backstage of his experience auditioning again. "Two months is a long time. I told her, 'They're probably negotiating with another actor right now.' But she never gave up. Because of how much I wanted it, and from watching my reaction reading the script, how emotional I got, she said, 'You're perfect for this.'" And he was, he really was.