Ke Huy Quan, the star of “EEAAO”, owes his Oscar victory to his mother: “She sacrificed so much”

Everything everywhere all at once Star Ke Huy Quan expressed his gratitude to his mother after winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

The 50-year-old actor said he honors his mother by taking her birth name back as an adult actor.

Speaking to the press backstage at the Oscars, after his win, he recalled a story of changing his birth name to an American name and then recovering later in his career.

“You know, when I started as a kid, it was my birth name Ke Huy Quan,” he said. “And then I remember, when it got really tough, my manager was like, ‘Maybe it would be easier if you had an American-sounding name.’ And I needed a job so badly that I would do anything.”

He went further: “And it’s insane that at some point I try a different name, not the name that was given to me, but that can only show you how desperate I was to try to make things different.”

However, when Quan decided to resume his acting career after a three-year hiatus, during which he found no work, he proudly used his real name.

In doing so, he felt he had honored his mother who had done so much for him and his other siblings and sacrificed so much for him.

“The very first thing I wanted to do was go back to my birth name,” he said. “Tonight to see Ariana [DeBose] open this envelope and say ‘Ke Huy Quan’, it was a really, really special moment for me.”

He then continued: “And then immediately I was so emotional, but the first image I had in my mind was my mother – which is why I am in America, which is why I have a better life, I have all these opportunities.”

“As I said in my acceptance speech, she sacrificed so much. She had a great life where we came from, and she gave it all up so that all of her children – nine of us – and each of us between them be so grateful to my parents,” he added.